Historical Perspectives 2012 PDF

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Historical
Perspectives
Department of History
Santa Clara University
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA 95053-0285
(408) 554-4527
Santa Clara University
Undergraduate Journal of History
June 2012
Series II, Volume XVII
Cover Photo
Painting of Louis Armstrong by Leonid Afremov
h ttp:/ / fin eartam erica .com /fea tured/1-Louis-Arm strong-Leon id-A frem ov .h tm l
Table of Contents
Historical Perspectives
Journal of History
2012
Introduction
Acknowledgments
Articles
Published by
Santa Clara University Lambda Upsilon Chapter
of Phi Alpha Theta
Creators, Destroyers, and a Judge: Infanticide and
Puerperal Insanity in Victorian English Courts
Christina Forst. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Protecting the Dead or Protecting the Living?
Above Ground Interment in Georgian (1714-1830)
and Victorian Britain (1837-1901)
Maxine DeVincenzi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Editorial Board
Andrea Dlugos
Michelle Khoury
Faculty Advisors
Professor Fabio López Lázaro
Father Paul Mariani, S.J.
Volume XVII of Historical Perspectives is the twentyscond journal published by Santa Clara University's
Lambda Upsilon chapter of Phi Alpha Theta. This
edition continues the tradition of providing its readers
with articles that reflect the caliber of student
scholarship at Santa Clara.
Wicked California: Leisure and Morality during the
Gold Rush, 1848-1860s
Michelle Khoury. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
The Development, Impact, and Long-term
Significance of Wartime Propaganda on the
Doughboys in World War I: Personal Appeal vs.
Moral Imperative
Maggie Woods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Tough on Black Asses: Segregation Ideology in the
Early American Jazz Industry
Laurel Bettis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Introduction
Virile, Yet Feminine: Sport, Gender, and
Representation in Fascist Italy
Andrea Dlugos.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Japan Disarmed: The Symbolism and Rejection of
the Defeated Soldier in Japanese Social Media
Ian Ghows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
FUBAR: A Historical Perspective on the Status of
Women in the US Military
Liz Marsden.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
The Lambda Upsilon chapter of Phi Alpha Theta
annually publishes Historical Perspectives, an undergraduate
research journal. For twenty-one years, students have
submitted their best scholarship to be reviewed by the
Historical Perspectives editing committee, a team of students
and faculty. This year, we were fortunate to have an
exceptional selection of papers to evaluate, reflecting the
high level of achievement of Santa Clara University’s history
students. We would like to thank all students who
submitted essays. The variety of research topics, theoretical
approaches, and writing styles illustrate the innovativeness
and uniqueness of these pieces.
While the following selection consists of papers that
are distinct and cover a variety of geographic regions and
eras, the overarching theme of identity unifies them. “We
should think of academic freedom,” wrote Edward Said, “as
an invitation to give up our obsession with our own identity
in the hope of understanding, and perhaps even assuming,
more than one.” These eight papers, organized
chronologically, each contribute to our understanding of
identity’s importance in the study of history. In Christina
Forst’s paper dealing with infanticide cases in Victorian
England, she discusses the pathologization of mothers who
committed infanticide, and how their transgression affected
how they were perceived by society. Maxine DeVincenzi also
studies the Victorian era, specifically its death culture, and
how burial practices helped define the period’s social
identity. In her paper “Wicked California,” Michelle Khoury
explores how Gold Rush California’s structureless society
provided miners the freedom to engage in activities that were
widely unaccepted elsewhere, allowing them to form their
own identities through leisure. Maggie Woods’ work on
World War I propaganda examines the romanticized, false
identity of American soldiers in propaganda, which was used
as a recruitment tool. In “Tough on Black Asses,”
Laurel Bettis demonstrates how migrating north allowed
African-American jazz musicians to embrace their own
identities as respected artists, as they were more removed
from the racial stereotypes that had defined them in the
south. Andrea Dlugos’ paper “Virile, Yet Feminine” analyzes
the effect that women’s participation in sports had on the
formation of identity by examining gender roles in Fascist
Italy. In “Japan Disarmed,” Ian Ghows discusses the
transformation of identity of the Japanese soldier before and
after World War II, specifically looking at Japanese social
media. Finally, Elizabeth Marsden’s historical analysis of
women in the United States military touches upon their
struggle to form their own identities, for they face being
labeled as either “whores or dikes.”
We would like to acknowledge the faculty, staff, and
students who make this undergraduate journal possible.
Specifically, we thank professor Fabio Lopez-Lazaro and
Father Paul Mariani, faculty advisors of this year’s edition,
as well as history Department Office Manager Mrs. Judy
Gillette. Congratulations to those students whose papers
were selected for publication. We are grateful to belong to a
department that provides an opportunity to showcase
student talent, research, and intellectual achievement.
Andrea Dlugos
Michelle Khoury
Student Editors
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank
Historical Perspectives Faculty Advisors
Fabio López Lázaro
Paul Mariani, S.J.
Phi Alpha Theta Advisor
Fabio López Lázaro
History Department Office Manager
Judy Gillette
And all of those faculty whose advice and
mentoring contributed to the papers published
herein.
Andrea Dlugos
Michelle Khoury
Student Editors
Creators, Destroyers, and a Judge
1
Creators, Destroyers, and a Judge:
Infanticide and Puerperal Insanity in
Victorian English Courts
Christina Forst
Responsibility in criminal courts has always raised
multiple legal issues. Culpability is a clear point of
contention, as the intent behind crimes can often
render a more lenient sentence. Asking a judge or jury
to believe that there is no guilt often requires establishing some sort of caveat to the accused individual’s
mental condition. However, this also leads to the
question of how to reasonably punish an individual
who it is deemed successfully presents this case.
British society had certain legal norms in such situations during the 18th and 19th centuries. As with any
type of lessened culpability defense, popular notions of
medicine were central to the verdicts.
There was a general understanding of the medical
risks to women. Childbed diseases often developed,
and puerperal fever was one of those diseases. As it is
currently defined today, puerperal fever is a systemic
bacterial infection often as a result of unsterile birthing procedures, degenerating into sepsis if not treated
immediately.1 Although the medical profession did not
yet know about bacteria, there seemed to be a clear
link between unclean doctors and the disease, as
1
See
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/puerperal+fever?s=t
2
June 2012
Christine Hallett notes in her article.2 The disease was
greatly feared among patients and their doctors, as
treatment was often ambiguous.3 It was this anxiety
toward the medical condition that created the anxious
nature from which puerperal mania was conceptualized.4
In the current body of work, the connection between puerperal insanity, infanticide and medico-legal
verdicts is weak. At times, there are strong links
between two out of the three, but the clear cause-andeffect connection is not established. This paper will
examine the perception of mother’s mental health
through infanticide verdicts. As cases from 1829 –
1913 show, the link between madness and culpability
troubled the courts as they struggled to balance
punishment with mercy. As a whole, the English
judicial system was much more lenient towards
women at this time compared to other country’s
judicial systems. However, this was not due to a
general compassion or understanding of women’s
situations. Instead, these verdicts were determined by
a social medico-legal understanding. The verdicts that
make up this eighty-four year period case survey
represent the influence of a social conception of female
2
Christine Hallett, “The Attempt to Understand Puerperal
Fever in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: The
Influence of Inflammation Theory,” Medical History 49, no. 1
(January 2, 2005).
3
Christine Hallett, “The Attempt to Understand Puerperal
(January 2, 2005): 1.
4
In this paper, I will follow the primary source material in
which puerperal “insanity”, “madness”, and “mania” are used
interchangeably.
3
madness, especially that related to childbed derangement.
I. Medical Background of Puerperal Insanity
In order to understand the legal verdicts, the
medical background of the influencing condition must
be examined. Giving birth in the Victorian Era was by
no means an easy task. The medical profession was
essentially based on trauma (surgery) and the level of
care for delivering mothers was nowhere near what is
expected of doctors today. Doctors were often minimally trained and more excited about emerging “technology” than the health of mother or infant. Midwives
were present at most births but were colloquially
trained at best. Given the medical profession's state, it
was no surprise that bearing a child posed an elevated
risk of disease. Women were at risk before, during, and
after childbirth. They were at the mercy of the medical
field’s limited medical knowledge. Without scientific
backing, many assumptions were made by Victorian
medicine. Frequently, these observations amounted to
half-truths, where Victorians were able to deduce
practical generalizations, even if the reasoning used to
get there has since been shown to be faulty.
Puerperal insanity would prove to be one of Victorian medicine’s faulty assumptions. Before explaining
the reasoning behind such “insanity”, its medical
background must be understood. Puerperal madness
was often traced to puerperal fever. Puerperal fever
first received its name in the early eighteenth century,
but the general awareness of susceptibility of women
to infections during childbirth was well known prior to
4
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the illness being categorized and receiving a title.5
Within three days of delivery, the sick woman suffered
from abdominal pain, fever and debility, but women
could also have headaches, “cold fits”, and extreme
thirst. The wide array of symptoms made puerperal
fever complex and very difficult for medical doctors to
diagnose.6 The disease became so prevalent that it
would be classified as an epidemic by current medical
standards.
The leap in logic that Victorian society made was to
link puerperal fever as a causative element in puerperal madness. The fever was a discernible physical
ailment known to the medical profession; there were
potentially traceable origins. Puerperal madness was
more ambiguous, as it was a psychological condition
defined in a period with little understanding of mental
processes. It was divided into two main categories:
mania and melancholia.7 Mania was the more sensational of the two and was therefore recorded more
often. This outright defiance of Victorian gender norms
exhibited in the women’s behavior would have shocked
any witnesses. The women were said to have displayed
behavior such as schizophrenia with random outbursts, usually of indecent nature. Melancholia
5
Christine Hawlett, “The Attempt to Understand Puerperal
(January 1, 2005), 1.
6
Ibid, 2.
7
Dr. Hilary Marland, “Maternity and Madness: Puerperal
Insanity in the Nineteenth Century,” Centre for the History of
Medicine (April 2003). Online
<http://www.nursing.manchester.ac.uk/ukchnm/
publications/ seminar papers/maternityandmadness.pdf>: 1.
5
manifested itself in more introverted episodes. Melancholic women suffered in silence, sunk into depression
or extreme isolationism, making the melancholia
category harder to diagnose.8 Treatment for both
manifestations remained uncertain, with most doctors
simply recommending rest and quiet. Whatever category the mother fell into, mania or melancholia, the
pressure put upon her could be displaced to her
newborn child.
II. Social History of Puerperal Insanity
For all intents and purposes, puerperal madness
was a societal construct. There was no medical backing; any pattern of predicting how a woman could
“catch” this mania could not be determined. Many
causes for puerperal insanity were posited; all rooted
in contemporary gender stereotypes. The leading
theory was that the trauma associated with childbirth
left the women debilitated, propelling them towards
this frenzied mania. 9 But underlying this reasoning
were perceptions that women were either not in
possession of a strong will, thus falling prey to the
disease. Given the current understanding of the
psychological stress put on Victorian women relegated
to their sphere of domesticity, there is overwhelming
evidence that new mothers at this time were physiologically stressed prior to giving birth.
Women were often to blame for their own illness,
6
June 2012
with English culture stating that they had somehow
fallen from grace. They had become much too malleable, exposed to this devil waiting in the wings. Females
were already shown to be the weaker sex, compromised by indecision, and made passive by their weak
wills.10 It should be noted that women’s frailty was in
relation to men, who could not understand birth.
Pregnancy only made this weakness worse. The
hormonal balance was upset and a woman was literally expelling the visible proof of the sexual encounter.
“Pregnant women were considered to be subject to wild
and depraved whims, quite unlinked to their ‘normal’
state.”11 During labor, women were thought to become
unhinged, and if the chaotic experience was sufficiently intense or prolonged, they were likely to develop acute and even prolonged mental disease.
Among more recent work, historians place a strong
emphasis on the sphere of domesticity – the concept
that women needed to remain in the home or at least
have those tendencies. Women were under pressure to
conform to unrealistic ideals and labor undoubtedly
raised expectations. With women relegated to their
domestic sphere, they were living, sleeping and eating
in a large prison cell. If they could not afford to be
relegated to the domestic sphere, women faced even
more anxieties about poverty, societal pressure and
impropriety of working. Women needed to preserve
themselves so that their husbands would be certain of
the paternity of their children. Sexuality had to be
8
Ibid, 3.
Dr. Hilary Marland, “Maternity and Madness: Puerperal
Insanity in the Nineteenth Century,” Centre for the History of
Medicine (April 2003). Online
<http://www.nursing.manchester.ac.uk/ukchnm/
publications/ seminar papers/maternityandmadness.pdf>: 1.
9
10
Janet Oppenheim, Shattered Nerves: Doctors, Patients,
and Depression in Victorian England (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 184-185.
11
Lisa Appignanesi, Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the
Mind Doctors (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008), 79.
7
heavily repressed, abhorred even; women were supposed to be uninterested and essentially repulsed by
any sexual advances.12 Once becoming a woman by
entering puberty, women were confined to a world in
which their sexual needs and general cognizance of
their womanhood could not be acknowledged for fear
of the creation of shame.13 Motherhood itself was
incredibly complex. Producing a child was the culmination of the sexual act itself but was also necessary,
as it was believed to be the purpose of a woman. The
wife-mother’s purity was the key to domesticity.
Making women too sexually empowered would disrupt
the entire structure. They would not accept family life,
not serve as an outlet for the husband’s sexual needs
and produce bastard children.14 This asexual female
was also an outward representation of the family’s
success – the husband could prove his prowess and
wealth and the children were raised as contributing
members of society. Motherhood was understood in
relation to every member of society except the mother
herself. Weak-willed, incorrectly diagnosed, psychologically distressed – women were at a higher society risk
for puerperal mania than they were for any other
medical disease.
The consequences of the labeling of puerperal
12
University Press, 1991), 202.
13
Elaine Showalter, The Female Malady: Women, Madness,
and English Culture, 1830-1980 (New York: Pantheon Books,
1985), 57.
14
8
June 2012
mania would prove to be quite extreme. Puerperal
insanity tended to manifest itself in the form of behaviors that proper society would have considered incredibly vulgar: women who developed this mental condition were indifferent to the ideas of politeness, decorum, dress, and behavior.15 In a society obsessed with
keeping up appearances, anything less than refined
would have been egregious. Other symptoms ranged
from simply eccentricity to infanticide. It was this
infanticide that was deeply disturbing to any observer,
although not exclusively out of concern for the infant.
The practice of infanticide was a moral panic, arising
out of concern for the moral stability of motherhood.
III. Turning Towards Infanticide
Committing infanticide was surprisingly easy in
Victorian England. Women were often attended by
untrained midwives. Having a doctor present for
childbirth was a luxury only the rich could afford.
Midwives were usually inept, sometimes drunk and
usually untrained.16 In order to make a little extra
money, these midwives would sometimes encourage
their patients (usually of a lower class) to sell their
babies, either into slavery, servitude, or death.17
15
Elaine Showalter, The Female Malady: Women, Madness,
and English Culture, 1830-1980 (New York: Pantheon Books,
1985), 57.
16
Lionel Rose, The Massacre of the Innocents: Infanticide in
Britain 1800-1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 8590.
17
Baby farmers would dispose of the child for a fee. At time,
midwives would blackmail their patients into handing their
children over to these individuals. These women were often
suspected of abortion, infanticide and various fake adoptions.
9
Underlying these popular concerns was the problem of
illegitimacy. The idea of a mother, married or not,
selling her child (the product of her femininity) created
a moral panic among Victorians. The very future of
society was hanging in the balance and Victorians felt
their intense morality dying along with the child. Thus
infanticide was well published, creating a perceived
epidemic and increasing the awareness of infanticide,
disproportionate to its actual occurrence.
The problem of infanticide created two different
class based problems. It threatened the notion of the
angelic homemaker. Women were seen as intended to
be relegated to, and competent in, their domestic
sphere, as previously stated. Infanticide contradicted
the idea of that doting mother. The notion of womanhood held dependency and compassion as central
ideas. This was not true for the sake of the feminine
sex, but to show the relative health of Victorian society.18 A woman who violated the ideal of motherhood,
effectively behaving the exact opposite way to their
supposed nature, suggested that society was failing.
This would undoubtedly make Victorians, especially
men, very anxious. Women were already the weaker
sex, and puerperal insanity signified that weakness
while also commenting on the social well-being of the
woman who contracted the disease. Becoming a
murderess meant that women were deciding their fate.
This had the potential to upset the gender norms, but
it simply served to show how the woman had fallen
10
prey to another decision maker – her neurosis.19 This
idea of violating the previous established sexual and
gender norms applied to those that could afford to be
defined by those gender norms.
Being poor in Victorian society meant living in
shame. It was the individual’s fault for their economic
hardship, an almost social Darwinism frame of thinking. With the addition of the New Poor Law into British
jurisprudence in 1834, there was a sense that the poor
should be held responsible for their economic situation, an attitude permeated the law. Social welfare was
highly discouraged, ensuring that being poor felt like
a punishment, so as to discourage dependency.
Women were especially cheated out of benefits in the
New Poor Law, which placed limitations on their rights
to seek help from the father of an illegitimate infant.20
A woman with illegitimate children was often in the
helping profession, making very little money and
completely dependent on her employer for food and
shelter. Much like other social concerns, Victorians felt
that these illegitimate children were threatening the
very social order. It was believed that reproducing was
a right held within society, one only made available to
married women. Lower class reproduction threatened
the wealth and security of the country.21 This distress
of an entire society was put on unwed mother, already
in a personally stressful situation. Modern psychology
19
Ibid, 220.
Ann R. Higginbotham, “'Sins of the Age': Infanticide and
Illegitimacy in Victorian London,” Victorian Studies, Indiana
University Press 32, no. 3 (Spring, 1989): 320.
21
Rosemary Gould, “The History of an Unnatural Act:
Infanticide and Adam Bede,” Victorian Literature and Culture
25, no. 2 (1997): 269.
20
18
Samantha Pegg, “'Madness Is a Woman': Constance Kent
and Victorian Constructions of Female Insanity,” Liverpool Law
Review 30 (17 April 2010): 219-220.
June 2012
11
understands this not as a woman not succumbing to
pressure, but as due to some psychological stress or
manic episode. A woman was punished for her sexuality and economic situation; this double jeopardy left
many women with no choice but to physically remove
the source of their social displeasure by killing their
own child. It was not uncommon to suffer such a
break more violently than other women, as the infanticide rate among illegitimate infants was twice as high
as infanticides among legitimate children.22 This was
the ultimate fallen woman, with a manifestation of her
sin, or lack of virtue. She would have to keep a permanent reminder, literal baggage. She had to choose
between two sins, killing her child or living in sin with
it.23
VI. Case Survey of Infanticide
Many sources reference babies floating in the
rivers, clogging drains and tossed in back allies. In
order to establish a more realistic and less sensational
picture of the occurrence of infanticide, a case survey
was conducted. In order to complete said survey,
samples of each type of infanticide case have been
described in detail below: the study includes both
married and unmarried women who were exonerated
by virtue of insanity, found guilty with the caveat of
insanity, or found guilty without mention of insanity.
Verdicts from 1829 - 1913 are studied, as examining
these decisions over the aforementioned eighty-four
22
Ann R. Higginbotham, “'Sins of the Age': Infanticide and
Illegitimacy in Victorian London,” Indiana University Press 32,
no. 3 (Spring, 1989): 321.
23
Ibid, 322.
12
June 2012
years allows a clear pattern to emerge. For the sake of
length, example cases from the three verdict outcomes
will be analyzed. Elizabeth Hodges and Adelaide
Freedman were exonerated, Eleanor Martha Browning
was guilty but insane, and Rebecca Smith was found
guilty. The table below shows the total sample case
size with the ultimate outcome of each woman's
sentence.
Name
Verdict
Year
Sarah Allen
Not Guilty; Insane
1856
Mary Ann Beveridge
Not Guilty; Insane
1849
Maria Borley
Not Guilty; Insane
1854
Mary Ann Brough
Not Guilty; Insane
1854
Eleanor Martha Browning
Guilty; Insane
1913
Maria Chitty
Not Guilty; Insane
1852
Maria Clarke
Guilty; Sentence Commuted
1851
Ann Coultass
Not Guilty; Insane
1858
Eliza Dart (attempted infanticide) Not Guilty; Insane
1878
Harriet Farrell
Not Guilty; Concealing the Birth 1829
Elizabeth Flew
Not Guilty; Insane
1850
Adelaide Freedman
Not Guilty; Insane
1869
Mary Ann Hamilton
Not Guilty; Insane
1862
Elizabeth Ann Harris
Guilty; Sentence Commuted
1862
Elizabeth Hodges
Not Guilty; Insane
1838
Esther Lack
Not Guilty; Insane
1865
Law, [female]
Not Guilty; Insane
1862
Emma Lewis
Not Guilty; Insane
1852
Mary McNeil
Not Guilty; Insane
1856
Martha Prior
Not Guilty; Insane
1848
Catherine Savell
Not Guilty; Insane
1854
Rebecca Smith
Guilty; Killed by Hanging
1849
Anne Cornish Vyse
Not Guilty; Insane
1862
Ann Wilson
Not Guilty; Insane
1861
Compiled using the “List of Cases” index in Roger Smith’s book Trial by
Medicine and the Oil Bailey Proceeding Online database, found at
oldbaileyonline.org.
Elizabeth Hodges was the wife of a butcher. The
family was at least minimally well off, as there was a
surgeon present for Mrs. Hodges’ births. It seems Mrs.
Hodges delivered her first child with no complications.
However, she would murder her second child in
13
1838.24 She was subsequently indicted for the willful
murder of her child, Sarah. Mary Ann Harvey, who
attended Mrs. Hodges, gave testimony in the case. She
said she was asked to come into the bedroom by Mr.
Hodges and subsequently asked where the child was.
When Mrs. Hodges replied that it was dead and in the
copper, Mrs. Harvey found the child submerged in
water in the copper.25 Mrs. Hodges would later confess
to her surgeon that she had smothered the child by
placing a pillow over its face.26 Prior to this act of
infanticide, Mrs. Harvey testified that Mrs. Hodges had
contemplated suicide – Mrs. Harvey once found an
open razor in the bedroom.27 Multiple witnesses
testified to Mrs. Hodges stating that she was taken
over by the devil, who possessed her to kill herself or
her child. Her neighbor considered her to be in a bad
state as there was a “visible change in her for the last
six months, in the total neglect of her person, and
never wishing to go out on any occasion, nor wishing
to see any company at all.”28 After she committed the
murder, those that questioned her motives found Mrs.
Hodges to be distant and uncooperative. Many witnesses blamed this type of behavior on Mrs. Hodges’s
24
Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org,
version 6.0, 04 March 2012), January 1838, trial of ELIZABETH
HODGES (t18380129-499).
25
In this situation, a copper either means a pot for boiling
water or a pot used as a latrine.
26
HODGES (t18380129-499).
27
Ibid.
28
HODGES (t18380129-499).
14
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milk deficiency problems. James Hayes, the surgeon
who attended both births and the second child’s death,
believed Mrs. Hodges to be competent at the time of
her trial. He stated that it was not uncommon for
women during childbirth and shortly after to be
“affected with a mania peculiar to that state – it is
called puerperal mania – deficiency of milk, and the
milk flowing upwards, would very probably cause such
consequences.”29 He further testified that he has seen
this problem frequently. Mrs. Hodges was ultimately
found not guilty of the murder by reason of insanity.
Adelaide Freedman was also tried under similar
circumstances. At the birth of her second child, her
husband was away, traveling in Peru. After giving birth
to a girl in 1869, Mrs. Freedman went to the local
chemist, and asked for a powder that would help
remove ink stains. This was not an uncommon request
and the chemist observed nothing strange about his
customer.30 Mrs. Freedman then gave poison to her
infant daughter and herself, informing the woman she
was staying with that she wanted to die. The baby
died; Mrs. Freedman was admitted to the hospital and
was later found with a handkerchief around her neck in an apparent suicide attempt.31 The attending nurse
testified that this behavior led her to question Mrs.
Freedman’s sanity, stating that Mrs. Freedman had
the look of puerperal mania, “which is a well-recognised form of insanity with women about the period of
their confinement…this form of puerperal mania
29
Ibid.
version 6.0, 04 March 2012), November 1869, trial of ADELAIDE
FREEDMAN (30) (t18691122-36).
31
Ibid.
30
15
develops itself sometimes by acts of violence to the
nearest and dearest, and to the offspring of the woman
– there is no fixed period at which it arrived at intensity.”32 Mr. Serjeant Sleigh further testified that women
afflicted by this mania have been known to kill other
people as a way of assuring their own death. He drew
the important distinction between puerperal mania
and homicidal mania, testifying that there were no
outward symptoms of Mrs. Freedman’s condition prior
to the murder of her infant. Both Dr. Henry Letheby
and Mr. Serjeant Sleigh believed that Mrs. Freedman
suffered from an uncontrollable impulse when she
poisoned her child.33 This type of mania would thereby
have allowed Mrs. Freedman to go to the chemist’s
shop, have a reasonable conversation with no outward
signals of her condition, and buy the poison that
would later kill her infant daughter. Adelaide Freedman was declared not guilty by reason of insanity.
In both Mrs. Hodges’ and Mrs. Freedman’s cases,
they were married with another living child. Mrs.
Hodges’ defense centered on the sudden shift in her
behaviors. She contended that her naming of the child
and attentive care up to the time of the murder demonstrated an intention to keep the child. The suddenness of the change of attitude was evidence of the
fever. She had a surgeon testify on behalf of her
puerperal mania, as well as other witnesses who
testified to her change in demeanor shortly before the
murder. Mrs. Freedman’s ability to be completely
32
version 6.0, 04 March 2012), November 1869, trial of ADELAIDE
FREEDMAN (30) (t18691122-36).
33
Ibid.
16
June 2012
reasonable while buying poison and then use that
reasonably obtained poison in a murder-suicide plot
was also seen as evidence of an abrupt alteration of
mood attributable to the fever. These factors in both
women’s cases made their insanity plea strong. The
mental condition of other women could not be as easily
established. These women were more than likely single
mothers, giving birth to the dreaded “bastard child.”
Single mothers often could not produce witnesses
that were able to testify to their mental state. Many
had been in hiding for most of their pregnancies,
concealing any evidence of the fact that they were with
child. To bear an illegitimate child in Victorian England was indeed shameful. Despite the absence of
these witnesses, most of these women did not receive
a harsh sentence.
Harriet Farrell (1829) was believed to be single
when she came into the service of Mr. and Mrs. Cook.
Mr. Cook discovered Miss Farrell in a chair in the
kitchen after she had been “so bad inside her all
night.”34 After discovering blood on a kitchen table and
chair, Mr. Cook found the body of the child inside the
privy. Mr. Cook did not remove the body but instead
called the police and told his wife what he had discovered. When Mrs. Cook questioned Miss Farrell about
her birth, and supposed miscarriage, she denied it,
and then fell silent.35 It was only when the child was
brought up from the privy, washed and examined by
the doctor that Miss Farrell confessed she had deliv34
version 6.0, 04 March 2012), February 1829, trial of HARRIET
FARRELL (t18290219-62).
35
Ibid.
17
ered a child. The previous mental state of Miss Farrell
is unknown, as she came to stay with the witnesses
when she was already pregnant. The couple had
previously suspected Miss Farrell of being pregnant
and had questioned her multiple times; Miss Farrell
claimed that she had caught a cold.36 Ms. Farrell was
charged with the “willful murder of her bastard child”
but she was found not guilty of murder but guilty of
concealing the birth.37
The case of Mrs. Eleanor Martha Browning presents one of the few unusual verdict pairings among
these sample cases. She was indicted for the willful
murder of her infant female child in 1913. She was
discovered on the landing of her rented home by her
landlord, who saw blood on Mrs. Browning’s hands.
When the landlord questioned her husband, Mr.
Browning led him to the scene of the murder. The baby
was lying on the floor, next to a knife.38 The doctor who
was called would later testify that the child’s throat
had been cut. Mrs. Browning was found not responsible for her actions, guilty but insane at the time of the
murder.39 Subsequently, Mrs. Browning also had
another child with her husband and was observed to
be a fond mother.
The women found guilty of the crime of infanticide
should be considered a distinct group, as there were
36
version 6.0, 04 March 2012), February 1829, trial of HARRIET
FARRELL (t18290219-62).
37
Ibid.
38
version 6.0, 05 March 2012), January 1913, trial of BROWNING,
Eleanor Martha (29) (t19130107-26).
39
Ibid.
18
June 2012
not very many cases. Maria Clarke was convicted of
killing her infant child in 1851. She buried her son
alive and confessed to a relative who relayed the
information to the police. The boy was later found
under the turf.40 Elizabeth Ann Harris (1862) was tried
for the murder of her two illegitimate children, one
child an infant and the other less than five years old.41
The reason these two women received commuted
sentence of confinement for life have nothing to do
with their circumstances and more with the society in
which they committed their crimes. They benefited
from a system that exhibited hesitation when it came
to executing women. Although they were no doubt
guilty of their crime, the explanation of puerperal
insanity allowed a judge to lessen their sentences.
Perhaps the most noteworthy case in this sample
group is the trial of Rebecca Smith, who was found
guilty of infanticide and executed in 1849, as it represents the clear anomaly in this study. She was the
only woman to be executed of those studied. Maria
Clarke and Elizabeth Ann Harris both had their
sentences commuted to confinement for life having
committed similar crimes. However, the anomaly is
quickly explained in this case when Mrs. Smith’s
circumstances are examined. She was much older
than the other women and as a result had delivered
eleven children. At the time of her hanging, the eldest
daughter was the only living offspring – “all the rest,
with the exception of two, the unhappy woman ac40
Charles Dickens, “The Household Narrative of Current
Events (for the Year 1851),” A Monthly Supplement to Household
Words (1851): 87.
41
A Prison Matron, Female Life in Prison (London: Hurst and
Blackett Publishers, 1862), 2: 257-259.
19
knowledged that she poisoned a day or two after their
birth.”42 The individual crime of infanticide by poison
was not uncommon, as seen in the case of Adelaide
Freedman. The ten individual acts of poisoning in Mrs.
Smith’s case did not sway the judge in this case. Also
unique to this case was the fact that Mrs. Smith was
forced to work in the fields, on account of her husband’s drunkenness. She would work in the field by
day and do her household chores by night all the while
with apparent child-murder on her mind; so as to
spare her unborn children from the suffering such a
life would create.43 Therefore, Mrs. Smith’s case did not
work within the framework of puerperal insanity; the
framework of a limited leave of sense did not apply
when Mrs. Smith’s sense had taken leave ten times.
Even with the extreme desire to avoid executing
women, Rebecca Smith represented a case that could
not be explained away.
Most women in these studies received a verdict of
not guilty by reason of insanity. The idea of puerperal
insanity is mentioned in the witness testimony of the
majority of these cases; it is not, however, used in the
ultimate sentencing language of these women. Puerperal insanity was an idea that had permeated the
vernacular of not only the legal profession but also
ordinary people. Therefore the insanity mentioned in
these verdicts would have been understood to be the
“lay definition” of insanity; that is one not influenced
42
R. H. Horne, “Analysis of Crime,” The Journal of
Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology 3 (1850): 114.
43
Ibid, 115.
20
June 2012
by the medical / psychological profession.44 There was
no involvement by any insanity specialists in these
trials.45 The meaning of this type of insanity was
therefore established essentially by popular cultural
norms. This social influence on the definition of
puerperal madness would have an effect on the social
stigma of infanticide. Such a conception would bring
a humanitarian narrative to the judicial verdicts, one
that took into account social action on behalf of
women, including their will and intent for the social
authority around them.46 The emerging narrative is
best exemplified by the multitude of not guilty verdicts.
The sentences of these women are the result of
both social and judicial factors. Women were often
found not guilty by reason of insanity, a standard legal
basis for acquittal, as in the case of Mrs. Freedman
and Mrs. Hodges (married women who gave birth to
legitimate children). The judges’ legal findings were
based on perceived societal beliefs about the nature of
puerperal insanity: its sudden and overwhelming onset
and its speedy passing. Miss Farrell and others like
her who killed their illegitimate children were limited
by social opinion; the courts were constrained by
society’s construction of this sense of motherhood.
However, the feminine frailty won out over the illegitimacy concern as they were found guilty of a lesser
sentence that carried the same punishment as those
44
Roger Smith, Trial by Medicine: Insanity and
Responsibility in Victorian Trials (Edinburgh: Edinburg
45
Ibid, 149.
46
Mark Jackson, New-Born Child Murder: Women,
Illegitimacy and the Courts in Eighteenth-Century England
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), 119.
21
found not guilty. Only Mrs. Smith was sentenced to
hanging. Her case did not properly fit the Victorian
understanding of puerperal insanity, apparently
because of the egregious circumstances.
Throughout England during this time, there was a
general movement away from capital punishment.
Many felt that the list of crimes punishable by death
was too long, resulting in an overly broad application.47
Among English courts, with judges and juries alike,
there was a strong desire to keep women away from
the gallows, especially mothers. The evidence suggests
that the leniency described earlier was not out of
sympathy for their women’s mental state; instead, it
involved much deeper social concerns regarding proper
womanhood and, more importantly, motherhood.
Using the verdict of insanity to acquit ultimately
placed the fault for the crime with the woman herself;
less as an individual but more as a member of a flawed
sex. Society believed that the horrific crimes must
reflect upon the state of childbirth, the frailty of
females, and its expression in puerperal mania. Thus
the adjudication of infanticide simultaneously blamed
and excused womanhood for these acts. Women who
committed infanticide existed in a purgatory – they
had violated the ideal of motherhood, but also confirmed the idea of the delicate “creature” that society
must protect.
There was a converging society’s need to excuse
these women with the contemporary perception of
disease that provided a plausible excuse for their
47
Brian P. Block and John Hostettler, Hanging in the
Balance: A History of the Abolition of Capital Punishment in
Britain (Winchester: Waterside Press, 1997), 44-46.
22
June 2012
disturbing behavior. Puerperal insanity was not
lasting, and it had a relatively definite expiration date.
It was also thought to be “contracted” during a woman's transitional state. A nature already considered
weak was thought to be at its most vulnerable during
childbirth.48 The witness testimony often given in these
cases employs phrases such as “not quite right in the
head,” “wild state,” “confusion,” and “not capable” to
describe the women in witness testimony.49 Such
testimony would often serve as a narrative of the
progress into insanity. The detailed explanation given
by the nurse in Mrs. Freedman’s case about the “wellrecognized form of insanity” illustrates that one did not
need to be a high ranking member of society to express
the idea of puerperal mania. Thus there was no
medical clarification needed, no medical tests, as there
were with other conditions.50 The colloquial understanding of the reasoning behind puerperal insanity,
couched within the context of the female nature,
almost always helped the woman's case for acquittal
48
Responsibility in Victorian Trials (Edinburgh: Edinburg
University Press, 1981), 149-152.
49
version 6.0, 05 March 2012), January 1913, trial of BROWNING,
Eleanor Martha (29) (t19130107-26), Old Bailey Proceedings
Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 04 March 2012),
November 1869, trial of ADELAIDE FREEDMAN (30)
(t18691122-36), etc.
50
For example, in order to determine if an infant was
stillborn or alive at the time of birth, medical doctors would
remove a lung sample and put it in water. If the sample floated,
it meant that the lungs had filled with air and the infant had, at
one point, been breathing. The reasoning behind this would
often have to be described in detail to a jury.
23
by reason of insanity.
This line of reasoning led many to believe that the
insane conduct connected with puerperal insanity was
a temporary seizing of the senses, something that was
entirely circumscribed. Thus, many judges considered
it immoral to condemn a woman to death for her
actions when in this condition.51 The often violent
reversal of the role of motherhood convinced them that
the culprit must be insane, to abandon her Victorian
ideals so suddenly. They could not imagine a true
mother would commit such an act. This Victorian
society successfully blended a legitimate legal defense
and a socio-medical popular notion, making this
excuse available to women. This made the deed, and
not the individual, insane, thereby reducing culpability
and rendering an insanity verdict for most women.
Christina Forst graduated from Santa Clara University in the Spring of 2012 with her History B.A. This
paper was presented at the Northern California Phi
Alpha Theta Conference. Christina has previously had
papers published in Historical Perspectives, as well as
presented at other regional and national conferences.
She plans to pursue a career in the legal field.
51
Responsibility in Victorian Trials (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
24
June 2012
Protecting the Dead or Protecting the
Living? Above Ground Interment in
Georgian (1714-1830) and Victorian
Britain (1837-1901)
Maxine DeVincenzi
Stoker, creator of Dracula (1897), provides his
audiences with an opportunity to better understand
the fears that permeated the minds of Victorians.
Stoker presents two characters that are perfect examples of the evolution of Georgian and Victorian obsessions and fears regarding death.
With some difficulty- for it was very dark, and
the whole place seemed so strange to us-we
found the Westerna tomb. The Professor took
the key, opened the creaky door, and standing
back politely, but quite unconsciously, motioned me to precede him….The tomb in the
day-time, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but
now some days afterwards, when the flowers
hung lank and dead, their whites turning to
rust and their greens to browns; when the
spider and beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discolored stone,
and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dark
iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silver
plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid
than could have been imagined. It conveyed
irresistibly the idea that life- animal life- was
Protecting the Dead or Protecting the Living? 25
not the only thing which could pass away…. ‘To
open the coffin.’ ‘You shall yet to be convinced.’
Straightway he began taking out the screws,
and finally lifted off the lid, showing the casing
of lead beneath…. Striking the turn screw
through the lead with a swift downward stab,
which made me admit the point of the saw. I
had expected a rush of gas from the week-old
corpse…. The coffin was empty…. ‘Perhaps a
body-snatcher.’1
At this moment of discovery the two tomb explorers,
professor and student, display two societal fears
related to corpses that characterized the Georgian and
Victorian periods. John, the student, suggests body
snatching as a possible explanation for the missing
corpse.
Body snatching was a deeply held fear that increased in the Georgian period, and continued during
Victoria’s reign. In addition, John “expected a rush of
gas from the week-old corpse” hinting at Victorian
fears surrounding miasma and the decomposition of
corpses. The intended objective of this paper is to
further explore the societal use of mausoleums, tombs,
vaults, and other above ground burial technology and
architecture employed in the Georgian and Victorian
era. The protection of the corpse from the living and
the protection the living from the decomposing corpse
were two main aims of Georgian and Victorian burial
reform respectively. Why did the continued use of
above ground burial technology come under attack
1
Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897), (NY: Barnes & Noble Classics,
2003), 211-213.
26
June 2012
during the Victorian period?
The second half of the 18th century was the golden
age of the mausoleum. Aristocratic landowners began
building mausoleums within their estates to create a
more attractive landscape and as a place to commemorate themselves in death. Lynn F. Pearson’s Mausoleums provides an excellent historical background to the
development and use of mausoleums in many cultures, including Great Britain. She defines a mausoleum, as “a magnificent or monumental tomb,” and
continues “more intuitive description including elements of entrance, enclosure, mass and separation
leads to the definition of a mausoleums as a substantial, discrete funerary structure containing a tomb or
tombs, and which can be entered.”2 Pearson argues
that mausoleums had multiple functions: “Not only did
the building act as an eye-catcher, but it provided the
family with a safe haven for family remains, unsullied
by contact with social inferiors.”3 Mausoleums continued to instill the idea of social boundaries in death.
Mausoleums became the “it” form of burial, and just as
coffin makers had a business boom, mausoleum
architects did as well. As the Victorian period came to
a close, the Edwardian era saw the rise in the number
of cremations and the grandiose funerary statements
of wealth became less fashionable.4
Aristocratic social standards as well as the “ideal of
undisturbed repose in the grave” were key elements in
the Georgian era (1714-1837) funeral. Ruth Richard2
Lynn F. Pearson, Mausoleums, (Oxford, UK: Osprey
Publishing, 2008), 3.
3
Ibid, 6.
4
Ibid, 8.
son, in Death, Dissection and the Destitute, situates her
historical discussion of the corpse before the 1832
Anatomy Act. During this period anatomy schools were
on the rise and the use of dissection became a popular
educational tool. However, dissection was considered
an unacceptable and inhumane practice. Hanged
murderers were considered an acceptable sector of
society to be used for this inhumane practice, so
dissection was seen as a unique punishment for the
worst crimes. However, this supply of bodies was not
enough to satisfy the increase in anatomy schools
therefore, body snatching notoriously filled the demand for cadavers. The passing of the 1832 Anatomy
Act allowed for the corpses of the poor and homeless to
be used for practice by surgeons, rendering dissection
punishment for a dying pauper.
Social class was easily identifiable by the characteristics of a burial. Pauper funerals involved no pomp
and circumstance. There was no marking for the
burial; and the coffin was of lower quality wood. All of
these realities allowed for body snatchers to come in
the night and snatch the corpses from the graves with
little to no evidence. As Henry Morely recalled: “The
practice was to remove carefully the soil at the head of
the grave and expose one end of the coffin, open that,
and with an instrument contrived for the purpose,
draw out the body by the head. The coffin was then
closed again, and the grave also closed again, so neatly
that no sign of its desecration could be easily perceived.”5 To counteract fears of body snatching and to
maintain the repose of the corpse in death, the aristoc5
Henry Morely, “The Use and Abuse of the Dead,” in
Household Words 17, April 3, 1858, 361.
28
June 2012
racy invested a considerable amount of money in the
funeral and burial of loved ones. Richardson acknowledges the use of the triple coffins, “a considerable part
of the cost in such funerals often covered transport out
of the metropolis to (safer) vaults near country seats.
The financially comfortable- like the Right Honorable
Lady Elizabeth Colville in 1839- often also had double
or triple coffins, but were less secure in a church or
chapel, or even less so if the vault was in a churchyard.”6 Richardson states: “Those who could afford to
do so purchased double or triple coffins- one of which
would often be lead, which was metal known as a
corpse-preserver… The Georgian undertaker provided
his more fortunate clients with the prospect of rotting
safely in secure coffins, sealed tight against the soil
and dust of less eminent corpses: and above all, safe
from body snatchers.”7 Richardson further introduces
another technological advance of the time, underground structures that could be used to further
protect the deceased: “Deep graves, secure vaults and
the many other expedients available to the financially
fortunate were purchased in the hope of acquiring
what Lord Radnor admitted in Parliament that he
himself desired for his own body a tomb more secure
than his own home.”8
Triple layered coffins and the burying of the deceased in vaults could not completely protect the dead
from being taken by body snatchers, but it provided a
6
Ruth Richardson, Death, Dissection and the Destitute,
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 80.
7
Ruth Richardson, “Why was death so big in Victorian
Britain?,” in Death, Ritual, and Bereavement, ed. Ralph
Houlbrooke (Oxford, UK: Routledge Kegan & Paul, 1989), 111.
8
Ibid.
greater level of security and peace of mind to Georgian
patricians. Desires to further protect the corpse
resulted in an increase of new patents and “high-tech”
coffin innovations. Metal coffins were patented as early
as 1781, but they became more widely used in 1818.
Edward Bridgman designed a coffin that was to be cast
out of wrought iron and concealed with spring catches
“on the inner side of the lid to prevent levering, and
joined in such a way as to thwart any attempt to force
the sides of the coffin apart.” In addition, this coffin
was designed to have the head and footstones connected by “secure iron bars,” accompanied by a cast
iron vault-tomb that extended a considerable distance
below the ground and was “to serve as a resurrectionist proof receptacle for more than one wooden coffin.”9
Protecting the corpse from the body snatchers was the
major concern of the Georgian period. It seems as if
mausoleums and vault like structures, whether below
or above ground, provided some sort of reassurance
that the corpse was better protected than simple under
ground burial. But all of this cost a considerable
amount of money, yet another way of defining social
class in death amidst the fear of body snatching.
Georgian patricians were buried or entombed in
vaults, shafts or mausolea. The rich were entombed in
magnificent coffins in their family vaults usually under
churches or in a mausoleum in parklands or near a
church.10 James Stevens Curl, author of Georgian
Architecture, states: “While it was doubtless useful to
have a mausoleum as an eye-catcher to ornament the
park or terminate the vista, the entombment of fami9
Ibid, 81.
Ibid, 195.
10
30
June 2012
lies in mausolea reflected a new sensibility. If the
individual mausoleum could not be had, the entombment in a chapel or within a church was the next best
thing.”11 Curl emphasizes the pervading Georgian fear
of bodysnatching; “Burial in a church or vault was
preferred to interment in the churchyard because of
the universal fear of body snatchers who disinterred
freshly buried bodies for sale to the anatomists.”12
While safety and protection were among the main aims
in the selection of a specific burial technology, what
the technology said about the deceased, in regards to
their social standing, was also of importance.
Georgians, as well as Victorians, were not regarded
as equals in death. Highgate Cemetery (1839) was
initially built to alleviate the nineteenth century crisis
of inadequate burial space for the dead, but soon
became known for its picturesque landscapes and
accommodation of the wealthy. “Monumentality can be
clearly witnessed as one ascends Highgate Hill, where
tombs become increasingly monumental, until, at the
summit, the dead remain forever visible.”13 The rich
could afford grandiose monuments, “the Highgate
cemetery ethos preached prosperity and status,” and
immortality was guaranteed if buried in the monuments of Highgate.14 Even more than for the Georgians, death provided the Victorians with the definitive
opportunity to make public statements about social
11
Ibid, 198.
Ibid.
13
Paul Graves Brown ed., Matter, Materiality, and Modern
Culture, (Oxford, UK: Routledge 2000), 114.
14
Ibid, 116-117.
12
status and monetary value.15 Richardson shares
Thomas Laqueur’s belief that death provided the
perfect opportunity to display social standing. Richardson states: “The Victorian era was one with an obsessive interest in the gradations of social placing; and
death served as a prime means of expressing, and of
defining, social place.”16 While many of these practices
were well in place before Victoria took the throne, the
societal anxieties they reflect became fully identifiable
as “Victorian.”17 In the Victorian period sanitary
questions and anxieties replaced the Georgian fear
surrounding body snatching. Did these concerns allow
for the continuation of older protective burial technologies, with a different intended purpose? Did these
technologies, consciously or subconsciously, also
protect the living from the dead? As Richardson notes:
“Almost all death customs appear to have been capable
of operating on more than one level- to serve more
than one need.”18
The Victorian era (1837 to 1901) was characterized
by the advancement of science and technology. The
topic of death was a given serious contemplation and
exploration. Richardson acknowledges the physicality
of the human corpse; “it is a carcass, with a predisposition to decay, to become noisome, obnoxious to the
senses and harrowing to the emotions. Disposal of
such perishable remains is imperative.”19 Understanding when death officially occurs, preventing premature
15
Ruth Richardson, “Why was death so big in Victorian
Britain?,” 106.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid, 107.
18
Ibid, 8.
19
Ruth Richardson, Death, Dissection and the Destitute,15.
32
June 2012
decomposition, and treating corpses correctly were all
topics that were seriously debated; this included
considering the appropriate burial grounds, coffin
technology, cremation, bodysnatching, dissection, and
the overall mechanics of death. Health officials and the
government instituted regulations and reforms, but
the core of Victorian societal fears continued to persist.
In his work, The Victorian Celebration of Death, Curl
focuses on anxieties surrounding the prevalence of
corpses in burial grounds, “the churchyards became
scenes of the most appalling horror, where bones
would be heaped on bones, and partially rotted bodies
would be disinterred to make way for a multitude of
corpses…something had to be done in order that death
could be celebrated in a hygienic and dignified manner
in surroundings more fitting than the loathsome
corruption of the churchyards…”20 A crowded burial
ground with decomposing bodies was increasingly
seen as inappropriate in the Victorian period.
Not only an unpleasant sight, crowded graveyards
also epitomized the Victorian fear of miasma. The
concept of miasma was not developed during this time
period, but miasma theory was used to explore the
outbreaks of cholera in the 1830’s and 1850’s. Putrefaction or decomposition occurs immediately when a
person passes for the body immediately begins to emit
gases. The miasma theorists believed that it was
possible to contract an illness or serious disease from
the vapors and gases arising from decomposing
20
James Stevens Curl, The Victorian Celebration of Death,
(Detroit: The Partridge Press, 1972), 53.
matter, especially fleshy matter or excrement.21 Miasma was identifiable by a foul smell. “London Burials,” published in 1851, mentions the “dreadful beyond
all smells- to which that of a cesspool, it seems, is as
rosewater in comparison, and which leaves in the
mouth a coppery taste if you had been ‘chewing a
penny-piece’…”22 Given the state of Victorian burial
grounds, some sort of smell would have undeniably
existed. Scientists and medical men of the day believed
that those who lived in close proximity to decomposing
material were at greater risk for infection.23
Miasma theory and the conditions of graveyards
and churchyards are the two major reasons cited in
the movement to eliminate interment within towns.24
Edwin Chadwick, in 1843, disregarded miasma as an
immediate “appreciable evil” in burial grounds. Chadwick’s extensive reports as a Poor Law Commissioner
concluded that the deadliest miasma emanates from
the body within the first two days after death.25 Chadwick advised that cemeteries maintain separate graves
21
Stephen Halliday, “Death And Miasma in Victorian
London: An Obstinate Belief,” British Medical Journal Vol. 323,
No. 7327 (Dec. 22 - 29, 2001): 1469.
22
“London Burials” in London, Ed. Charles Knight (London,
UK: Henry G. Bohn, 1851), 167.
23
For more information on miasma and the Victorian
fixation of clean air see: James Cantlie’s “Degeneration Amongst
Londoners” and Lynda Nead’s Victorian Babylon, Chapter 1
“Maps and Sewers.”
24
Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s
Most Terrifying Epidemic- and How it Changed Science, Cities,
and the Modern World, (New York: Riverhead Books, 2006), 86.
25
Mary Elizabeth Hotz, Literary Remains: Representations of
Death and Burial in Victorian England (Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press), 19.
34
June 2012
at least six feet deep and, as Hotz states, provide
“adequate space between them and a safe and protected distance from local habitations, morally uplifting visual arrangements, and careful attention to the
cultivation of breathing spaces to disarm the effects of
miasma.”26 John Claudius Loudon shared Chadwick’s opinion about the placement of graves and
urban graveyards. Loudon focused on the organization
of space in London during the Victorian period and
participated in a discussion concerning how cemeteries should be organized. Contrary to other figures of
the day, Loudon recommended burials in airtight
sealed coffins in vaults or catacombs. Loudon believed
that managing a family grave was difficult because it
was nearly impossible to allow the appropriate amount
of earth between coffins. Six feet was the standard. If
these standards were not respected they would prove
harmful to the living, affecting their health and their
feelings surrounding death. According to Curl,
“Loudon defined the uses of a cemetery to include the
disposal of the remains of the dead in such a manner
as that their decomposition, and return to the earth
from which they sprang, should not prove injurious to
the living either by affecting their health, or ‘shocking
their feelings, opinions or prejudices.’”27 Curl continues by summarizing how Loudon’s beliefs were based
on perceived real threats: “he recalled the several
unpleasant incidents when coffins in the vaults of the
new London cemeteries had exploded, and undertakers were sent for in order to re-solder the lead coffins
to contain the corruption.” Loudon’s reference to this
26
27
Ibid, 29.
Curl, The Victorian Celebration of Death, 82.
type of corruption was clearly a description of the
gases that are released during decomposition. Scientists and medical men of the Victorian era believed
that these gases, if not handled correctly, could make
a coffin explode and spread disease.28
Chadwick’s Sanitary Report (1843) and the Supplementary Report on Interments in Town highlighted the
societal fears surrounding “an exposed putrid body,”
that is decomposition and its potential ill effects. R.A.
Lewis’s expresses the anxiety: “London’s two hundred
graveyards gave off incessantly the exhalations of
decay, and the morbific matter, whose deadliness was
shown if it got into the slightest cut, might be breathed
into the lungs when it was diffused into the atmosphere.”29 Chadwick enthusiastically believed that
bodies should be buried outside the boundaries of
towns: “all interments in towns, without exception
must be prohibited. The joint stock cemeteries and the
private grounds must be bought out. The churchyards
must be closed, their sites being kept as open spaces
for public use.”30 The condition of urban graveyards
was no secret, those living close proximity to churchyards understood the severity of the problem. Lewis
quotes a congregational minister, “More crowded even
than the churchyards were the private cemeteries,
usually the property of an undertaker, where…the soil
was ‘saturated and blackened with human remains
and fragments of the dead’ and ‘the splash of water is
heard from the graves, as the coffins descend, produc28
Ibid.
R.A Lewis, Edwin Chadwick and the Public Health
Movement 1832-1854 (London: Longmans, Green and Co,
1952), 67.
30
Ibid, 73.
29
36
June 2012
ing a shudder in every mourner.’”31
Reformers focused on sanitation, arguing for
lightweight, perishable coffins. Strong, leaden coffins
did not allow the earth access to the body. Reformers
believed that if the body was placed directly in the
ground decomposition would occur more rapidly with
little to none pollution or spread of disease.32 The
rector of Mixbury in 1852, Revd William Jocelyn
Palmer, upon his death requested that “my body may
be buried in the Church Yard at Mixbury, in the
plainest, commonest, and least expensive way, in a
single coffin, made of elm board, and in a common
grave, as near as may be to my dear son Thomas;
without brick and mortar, except so much as shall be
sufficient to give stability to a common head and foot
stone.”33 Pat Jalland’s research reveals countless
examples of Victorians who preferred to move away
from the heavy lead coffins. Simple graves were increasingly preferred over vaulted or brick graves, lead
coffins were seen as too heavy, and new perishable
coffin technologies were developed.34 Miasma was a
constant fear; an earth burial would allow for decomposition to occur quickly.
Sanitary concerns became the driving force in the
death culture of health- minded middle-class Victorians. The middle to late 19th century saw significant
changes in the way that corpses were dealt with after
death, as well as in funeral and burial arrangements.
Reformers were particularly concerned with the rate at
31
Ibid.
Pat Jalland, Death in the Victorian Family, (Oxford: Oxford
33
Ibid.
34
Ibid.
32
which bodies decompose and the protection of the
public. Consequently, urban graveyards and churchyards and aristocratic burial technology and architecture (mausoleums and tombs) fell under suspicion.
George Alfred Walker, in an 1842 article, comments
on the “entire absence of every precaution” when
placing corpses beneath churches and burying corpses
in densely populated burial grounds. Walker focused
on the reality of burials in common burial places:
“bodies are placed one above another, and side by side,
to the depth of twenty-five or thirty feet, the topmost
coffins being but a few inches from the surface.”35
Walker shared Chadwick’s belief that bodies should be
placed six feet below the ground for proper and safe
decomposition to occur. Walker also disregarded the
popular belief that lead provided an extra layer of
protection for the health of the public. Walker warned
that when decomposition was slowed “under a medium
temperature, as in vaults, the expansive force of the
gas is such, that the lids of coffins frequently become
convex, and sometimes are rent asunder, and the
gases thus and otherwise disengaged become diffused
and mixed with the atmosphere, and enter the lungs
in every inspiration.”36
As mentioned above, Chadwick’s Supplementary
Report on the Results of a Special Inquiry into the
Practice of Interment in Towns (1843) reveals his
enthusiastic belief that corpses should not be interred
within the boundaries of cities. Chadwick participated
35
George Alfred Walker, “Burials,” Provincial Medical and
Surgical Journal (1840-1842) Vol. 3, No. 26 (Mar. 26, 1842):
520.
36
Ibid.
38
June 2012
in multiple interviews with undertakers and those
involved in the process of interring or entombing a
corpse to further investigate and provide evidence for
his beliefs. Chadwick comments on gases seeping out
of coffins, from vaults or underground, and the existence of miasma in graveyards: “The occurrence of
cases of instant death to grave diggers, from accidentally inhaling the concentrated miasma which escapes
from coffins, is undeniable. Slower deaths from exposure to such miasma are designated as 'low fevers’…
[so] that the exposure to that influence is apt to
produce grievous and fatal injuries amongst the
public.”37
The possibility of a leaden coffin bursting in the
vaults of cemeteries and churchyards was of major
concern, “The inquiry brought forward instances of the
bursting of some leaden coffins and the escape of
mephitic vapor in the catacombs…of two laborers
having been injured, apparently by digging amidst
some impure water which drained from some
graves.”38Victorians feared that miasma could potentially poison the air they breathed, and as Chadwick
reveals, they feared the possibility of miasma contaminating the water sources of the cities:
The regulation of the depth of the graves has
been found to be a subject requiring great
37
Edwin Chadwick, Report on the Sanitary Condition of the
Labouring Population of Great Britain. A Supplementary Report on
the Results of a Special Inquiry into the Practice of Interment in
Towns. Made at the Request of her Majesty's Principal Secretary
of State for the Home Department (London, UK: W. Clowes and
Sons, 1843), 15-16.
38
Ibid, 27.
attention, to avoid occasioning too rapid an
evolution of miasma from the remains, and at
the same time to avoid its retention and corruption, to avoid the pollution of distant springs,
and also to avoid rendering increased space for
burial requisite by the delay of decomposition
usually produced by deep burial for the ground
usually becomes hard in proportion to the
depth, and delays the decomposition.39
Chadwick fervently believed that cemeteries should be
moved outside the limits of the city and a considerable
distance from people, but if bodies were to remain
within the limits of the city then a depth regulation
needed to be put in place.
That inasmuch as there appear to be no cases
in which the emanations from human remains
in an advanced stage of decomposition are not
of a deleterious nature, so there is no case in
which the liability to danger should be incurred
either by interment (or by entombment in
vaults, which is most dangerous) amidst the
dwellings of the living, it being established as a
general conclusion in respect to the physical
circumstances of interment, from which no
adequate grounds of exception have been established. That all interments in towns where
bodies decompose, contribute to the mass of
atmospheric impurity which is injurious to the
public health.40
40
Chadwick alludes to the belief that entombment in
vaults is most dangerous. In the early pages of his
report, Chadwick discusses the prevalence of miasma
and effluvia in churchyards and whether it was detectable. Chadwick states: “Another surgeon who had lived
for many years near a churchyard in the metropolis,
and had never observed any effluvia from it, neither
did he perceive any effects of such emanations at
church or anywhere else; yet he admitted that his wife
perceived the openings of vaults when she went to the
church to which the graveyard belonged, and after
respiring the air there, would say, ‘they have opened a
vault,’ and on inquiry, the fact proved to be so.”41
Vaults and tombs were believed to be the most dangerous form of burial because they did not allow for the
effluvia, miasma, and decomposition gases to dissipate.
Chadwick also discusses the question of leaden
coffins. He states: “The retention of bodies in leaden
coffins in vaults is objected to, as increasing the
noxiousness of the gases, which sooner or later escape, and when in vaults beneath churches, create a
miasma which is apt to escape through the floor,
whenever the church is warmed...”42 Chadwick continues, “burial in lead, as well as in other expensive
coffins, appears to be generally promoted by the
undertakers, to whom they are the most profitable,”
insinuating that Victorian fears were encouraged in
order to profit undertakers.43 Removing corpses from
the city provided Victorians with a possible solution to
41
39
40
Ibid, 128.
Ibid, 31.
June 2012
42
43
Chadwick, “Report on Sanitary Conditions,” 4.
Ibid, 135.
Ibid, 136.
the injurious effects of miasma and the decomposition
of corpses. Chadwick’s wish was granted; in March of
1842 “a Select Committee” was established to consider
the development of legislation to “remedy the evils
arising from the interment of bodies within the precincts of large towns, or of places densely populated.”44
The “Lectures on Public Hygiene and Medical
Police,” delivered by James Black at the Manchester
Royal School of Medicine and Surgery in the summer
of 1844 summarizes Victorian fears of the decomposing corpse. Similar to Chadwick, Black calls into
question the existence of miasma in burial grounds: “It
is difficult in every case to determine the exact
amount, if any, of the injurious effects on health that
result from living near or in the immediate vicinity of
burial grounds…but where there are any exhalations
ascertained to arise from such places, we may infer
upon sound theory, that they must have a positively
noxious effect.”45 Black emphasizes that burial
grounds should be placed outside of towns and “at a
distance from springs and rivers that are subject to
overflow.”46 Additionally, the depth of the grave needs
to be taken into consideration, “If they are deeper, the
decomposition is retarded from the total exclusion of
the air and heat; and if at a less depth, they would
44
J. Ingham Ikin, "On the progress of Public Hygiene and
Sanitary Legislation,” Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal
(1844-1852) Vol. 15, No.19 (Sep.17, 1851): 568.
45
James Black, “Lectures on Public Hygiene and Medical
Police,” The Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal Lecture IV
(September 25, 1844): 394.
46
Ibid.
42
June 2012
allow the exhalations from the corpses to permeate the
earth easily, and thus infect the atmosphere."47
Similar to Walker and Chadwick, the article published in The Lancet, “Progressive Closure of Graveyards,” in 1849, stresses urgency that “a proper outlet
for our enormous mortality ought instantly to be
found.”48 Churches were perceived as both a positive
and negative location for the burial of a corpse, the
positive being the church is a place of worship, and the
negative being the church as a place “of pollution by
festering bodies of the dead in the vaults beneath.”49
The church was likened to a hospital during the
ongoing cholera epidemic, the “death dust” from the
tombs arising from beneath the church and affecting
the worshipers. The Lancet provides a clear articulation of the belief that burials above ground were
harmful to society: “During the present frightful
mortality [cholera] some mode and place of interment
must be found, not more expensive or onerous to the
poor than the present method of burial. Otherwise, the
most fearful results may be expected. We shall have
dead bodies accumulating intra muros above ground,
instead of beneath it, and we need not say which is
more baleful alternative.”50 This suggests that earthen
burial and above ground burial were both feared, but
that “intra muros” (above ground) burial might be the
more feared method of the two.
Waller Lewis inspected vaults in 1849 and 1850
throughout London; his main objective was to further
47
Ibid.
“Progressive Closure of Graveyards,” The Lancet
(September 15, 1849): 298.
49
Ibid.
50
Ibid.
48
understand how a body decomposed within an above
ground burial receptacle. In 1849, with the cholera
epidemic in full swing, the General Board of Health
prohibited burials within a vault or mausoleum unless
in an “air-tight leaden coffin.”51 An objective of the
General Board of Health was to understand the ways
in which a decomposing body’s gases distribute, “To
observe how the dead man strives, after his fashion, to
escape from his subterranean imprisonment with
greater force than ever in life he could have exerted to
tear asunder galling manacles, or burst through
dungeon walls.”52 It was believed that the gases released during decomposition were strong enough to
burst through cement and brick. Like Chadwick and
Walker, Lewis hoped for “the practice of entombment
in receptacles” to be prohibited and vaults to be closed
forever.53
The General Board of Health’s findings on extramural interments provided Lewis a context to begin his
inspections of the churchyard vaults throughout
London and the possibly ill effects of confining a body
undergoing decomposition.
Do the members of the Board of Health know
what sort of substances they seek to confine,
when they put a corpse weighing some eight or
ten stone, into a box of sheet-lead closely soldered down? Are they acquainted with the
seventeen or eighteen chemical elements of
51
Waller Lewis M.B., F.G.S, "On the Chemical and General
Effects of the Practice of Interment in Vaults and catacombs,"
The Lancet Vol. 58, Issue 1458. (1851): 125.
52
Ibid.
53
Ibid.
44
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which the human body is built up, and with the
influences of confinement on the putrefactive
combinations of these elements? Have they
considered how, and by what process that
decomposition takes place, which leaves at the
end of ten years only, a few brittle bones in the
else vacant shroud? And are they aware of the
terrible retribution with which nature will
punish the violation of her law, if they persist in
obstructing with leaden barriers the corporeal
absorption of the dead?54
Lewis suggested that the Board of Health was not fully
enlightened of the affects of decomposition and what
can happen if the noxious gases are confined. The
absence of air does not stop the process of decomposition, and by withholding air from the decomposing
corpse the chemicals released will create a gaseous
poison so intense that “their mere contact with mucus
surface of the body may occasion sudden death.”55
Earthen burial is the solution. Lewis argued it provided a safe decomposition if the corpse is buried at
the appropriate depth.
Lewis’s investigations yielded no evidence that the
air around vaults was contaminated with harmful
gases. However, the gases released within coffins were
unpredictable enough that the practice of interment in
vaults should be eliminated. Additionally, coffins do
not consistently bulge by the expansion of elastic
fluids within. However, leaden coffins did slow the
decomposition of a corpse: “In my opinion, the fact
54
55
Ibid.
Ibid.
that coffins so rarely become bulged is to be ascribed
to the great porosity of the metal employed, when
slightly bulged, the lead, from being thinner before,
becomes more pervious to the contained air.”56
Lewis’ conclusions were as follows: 1) Internment
in vaults should no longer be permitted. “No good
object is gained by this practice. The corpse so treated
are by this means converted into so many active
volcanoes, constantly emitting poisonous effluvia into
the atmosphere, for an indefinite period.” 2) No one
should have access to “these receptacles” after a
certain amount of time for “after a certain interval,
during which friends or relatives should have the
power of removing any coffins from the vaults to the
public cemeteries, all these receptacles should be
hermetically closed and future access thereto forbidden.” 3) Lead coffins should be banned, not for their
purpose, but for their cost; “they only add to the
exorbitant charges of undertakers. Until a very late
period they were constantly stolen from the vaults,
emptied of their contents and sold as old lead.” 4)
Bodies should be able to decompose in peace, “[I]f the
object of interment is to allow the human body, after it
has served a purpose here, to return speedily as
possibly to its elements, and to become perfectly inert,
it should be placed in a light wooden coffin, from 5 to
8 feet deep, in suitable pervious soil.”57
In the spring of 1856 The British Medical journal
published a question and answer section in which the
following subject was discussed, the discontinuation
of vaults beneath Westminster. However, one exception
56
57
Ibid.
Ibid.
46
June 2012
still remained for privileged parties: “that the bodies
buried be embedded in a layer of powdered charcoal,
six inches at least in thickness.”58 Why charcoal?
Charcoal, as with lead, was believed to absorb the
“deleterious gases arising from the decaying body,” but
little substantial evidence supported this belief the
editor states. In 1864 The Lancet published “The
Interment of the Dead” a letter to the editor, discussing
the use of lead in burials; “Burials in lead, in vaults,
and in catacombs are another cause of annoyance and
injury to the public. The lead coffins burst, or are
perforated. In both cases they continue, for a long
time, to be vomitories of stench, contagion, and disease.”59 The correspondence was signed, “your obedient servant, a sufferer from the evil complained of.”
The writer claimed that he had suffered from the
decomposition of dead bodies and general death
customs of the time.
For the majority of British history it was commonplace for some corpses to be buried beneath the
church and in the surrounding churchyard. During
the Victorian period this traditional practice came
under fire.60 In 1882 The British Medical Journal
published “Unsanitary Burials in Churches,” which
stated: “The churchwardens, or, at any rate, those who
carried out the work, ought to have known that gases
readily pass through most kinds of bricks, and, if
58
“Powdered Charcoal in Church Vaults,” Association
Medical Journal, Vol. 4, No. 172 (Apr. 19, 1856): 319.
59
“The Interment of the Dead, To the Editor of the Lancet,”
The Lancet, (Nov. 5, 1864): 534.
60
Peter C. Jupp and Clare Gittings, Death In England: An
Illustrated History, (Manchester, UK: Manchester University
Press, 1999), 193.
under pressure (as in the case of a decomposing body
in a wooden coffin), will also find their way through a
thin layer of concrete.”61 If burials beneath churches
were dangerous to the churchgoers (which was believed before the publishing of this article in 1882,)
where were the dying practitioners to be buried? Those
who were well off left the churchyard and buried loved
ones in brick-lined shafts, mausolea, and vaults on
their own property or in the national cemeteries.62
As in the Georgian period, above ground burial
technology was used in the Victorian period to denote
social standing and perpetuate societal class boundaries. The intended use of mausoleums, tombs and
church vaults was also to further protect the corpse
from the living (body snatchers, anatomists, etc.).
From the primary sources I have provided, I have not
found substantial evidence to suggest that these
technologies were ever used to protect the living from
the dead. But rather, with Victorian sanitary obsessions, these technologies began to cause more fear for
the living. However, certain coffin technologies (lead
linings) were developed throughout the Georgian and
Victorian periods in the hope of protecting the living
from the dead. The middle to late Victorian period saw
the rise in new beliefs surrounding fleshy decomposition. Reformers and health officials, as well as the
public, began to focus on rapid decomposition, having
the corpse return to the earth as quickly as possible.
The use of triple layer coffins, lead, and airtight coffins
would not allow for a rapid decomposition. Light
61
“Unsanitary Burials In Churches,” The British Medical
Journal Vol. 2, No. 1141 (November 11 1882): 955.
62
Jupp, Death in England, 193.
48
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wooden coffins and more natural forms of burial began
to appear, for the coffin disintegrated rapidly the
corpse would do the same.
In the early Victorian period Chadwick and other
prominent health reformers of the time believed that
corpses should be moved outside the boundaries of the
city. But if that was not possible, all corpses should be
buried in strong, leaden, airtight coffins. Throughout
the Victorian era continued, evidence mounted against
aristocratic forms of burial; in tombs, church vaults,
and other above ground burial technologies, they were
believed to further harm the population due to their
explosive nature. Rapid and more natural forms of
burial began to be favored in the middle to late Victorian period. For example lightweight, perishable coffins
placed directly in the earth would guarantee a quick
disposal of the dead. As mentioned above, Chadwick
states: “The retention of bodies in leaden coffins in
vaults is objected to, as increasing the noxiousness of
the gases, which sooner or later escape, and when in
vaults beneath churches, create a miasma which is apt
to escape through the floor, whenever the church is
warmed...”63 For the majority of the Victorian period,
the movement of graveyards outside the boundaries of
the city was seen as the foolproof solution to the
sanitary and spatial concerns.
As the Victorian period was coming to a close,
cremation gained popularity as an additional solution
to harmful decomposing corpses that might infect the
population. Sir Henry Thompson, Queen Victoria’s
surgeon, and his medical colleagues, developed the
Cremation Society of Great Britain in 1874 the hope of
63
Chadwick, “Report on Sanitary Conditions,” 135.
persuading the public that cremation was the best
solution for a speedy decomposition and disposal of
corpses.64 In terms of burial sites, cremation eliminated the monumentality that was popular during the
Georgian and Victorian periods. “The Progress of
Cremation,” published in 1889 by The British Medical
Journal, alluded to the “disadvantages” of interment in
burial grounds. If directly pointed to the possible
sanitary and health predicaments; “Accept the practice
(cremation) as one of great advantage to the community…by requiring that their ashes shall be cremated,
instead of their bodies being disposed of by interment,
of which the disadvantages have repeatedly been
pointed out by eminent authorities.”65 Cremating a
corpse eliminated the process of decomposition and
solved the problem of having too many corpses and not
enough burial land.
Stoker uses Dracula to comment on the Victorian
funeral practices. The story alludes to the transitions
Victorian society was experiencing. Hotz states that
Stoker “collapses the boundaries between the living
and the dead in order to problematize England’s sense
of itself as a civilized, rational, and progressive nation;
and he insists, paradoxically, that despite enormous
efforts to contain and confine the corpse, it remains,
ultimately, restless in Victorian culture to remind
society of its essential and educative role in modernity.”66
64
Sir Henry Thompson, Cremation: The Treatment of the
Body After Dead 3rd Ed. (London: Smith, Elder, &Co., 1884), 139.
65
“The Progress of Cremation,” The British Medical Journal
Vol.1 No. 1477 (April 20 1889): 905.
66
Hotz, Literary Remains, 153.
50
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Throughout this paper I have seen significant
transitions that took place during this period: from
tombs and mausoleums and airtight leaden coffins, to
the perception that these technologies actually could
harm the public more than a corpse buried in the
earth, to the resurgence of natural burial and the
development of cremation, all these transitions signified the evolving Victorian perception of death and how
the body and corpse could be treated. Understanding
the way that a society approaches the treatment of a
life event such as death allows us to understand other
aspects of that society. The evolution of the treatment
of the corpse exemplifies Victorian society struggling
for a proper, scientific form of disposal of the dead,
while still accommodating the display of social class.
Maxine DeVincenzi transferred to Santa Clara
University as a History and Anthropology major in
2009. SCU’s History and Anthropology departments
provided her with many opportunities to explore her true
interests within both disciplines.
Maxine’s senior
capstone, “Protecting the Dead or Protecting the Living?
Above Ground Interment in Georgian (1714-1830) and
Victorian Britain (1837-1901),” is the result of her
research and exploration in the way in which people of
the past approached and dealt with death.
Wicked California
51
Wicked California: Leisure and Morality
during the Gold Rush, 1848-1860s
Michelle Khoury
Play is serious. Although a paradox, it holds truth.
How people behave in their spare time reflects a great
deal about the society in which they live. “In our
leisure,” wrote the famous poet Ovid, “we reveal what
kind of people we are.” In 1938, Dutch Historian and
cultural theorist Johan Huizinga wrote about the play
element of society in Homo Ludens, or “Man the
Player.” In this classic, he argues that civilization
arises in play, integrating the notion of play into the
concept of culture. Huizinga attempts to define “leisure” by detailing its essential characteristics. Play’s
first quality is freedom. It is always voluntary. Second,
it is outside the realm of “ordinary” or “real” life. When
one plays, he or she enters a “temporary sphere of
activity.” Third, play is always limited by locality and
duration. It is engaged in a “playground,” such as an
arena, stage, or card table, and it “plays itself to an
end.” Fourth, play creates order. It involves certain
rules, and one who breaks the rules typically spoils the
game.1
Unfortunately, many scholars quickly dismiss
leisure’s importance in history. To demonstrate its
significance, I examined miners’ recreational activities
during the California Gold Rush. Many young, unmarried men fled to California in the mid-1800s to start a
1
Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens (Boston: Beacon Press,
1955), 1-12.
52
June 2012
new life, a life of prosperity and fortune. Being away
from family and other forces which impose traditional
values, these miners often broke away from accepted
behavior. They socialized at saloons, gambling houses,
and sporting arenas. My historical question concerns
the effects of these recreational activities on the
character of California. Religious institutions, especially from the Northeast, sent clergymen to respond to
the miners’ profane behavior. I investigated the interplay between these two entities and their values:
between East and West, self-discipline and freedom,
and the Protestant work ethic and California’s motto of
“getting rich quick.”
Having considered many primary sources—diaries,
letters, and memoirs— I can conclude confidently that
play is serious. Miners’ pastimes challenged convention, driving a clash of values. Leisure is an indispensable element in understanding what scholars have
dubbed California’s “marketplace of morals.”2
That California had a unique moral landscape
during the Gold Rush era is clear. It is often described
as without structure and lacking societal constraints.
One observer, Hinton Helper, remarked:
I have seen purer liquors, better segars [sic],
finer tobacco, truer guns and pistols, larger
dirks and bowie knives, and prettier courtezans
[sic] here, than in any other place I have ever
visited; and it is my unbiased opinion that
California can and does furnish the best bad
2
Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, Religion and Society in Frontier
California (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 5.
Wicked California
53
things that are obtainable in America.3
The moral laxity described by Helper was something
unfamiliar and shocking to many who arrived in
California. As demonstrated by this quote, leisure
helped to create such looseness. Historian Susan Lee
Johnson explains that “people in every Gold Rush
community, immigrant and Indian, sought diversion
from the business of producing material life—they
sang and prayed, they told stories and wrote letters,
they gambled and got drunk, they danced to one
another’s drumming or fiddle playing and cheered at
bull-and-bear fights.”4 Due to the volatile and unstable nature of the gold mining industry, miners engaged
in a variety of pastimes. Free from familial, cultural,
and religious constraints, many broke from convention
by participating in activities which would be deemed
as utterly sinful in the Northeast. Johnson adds,
“Leisure, defined loosely to include both diversion and
sacred practices, was often a contested terrain upon
which gold seekers drew boundaries that separated
them into opposing camps…by different notions of
what constituted appropriate behavior.”5
A controversial type of amusement was gambling,
fitting and reflective of Gold Rush society. The risk,
uncertainty, and high stakes of card games characterized the journey to the frontier and gold mining itself.
As one historian explained, “Gambling took on a
special significance in a setting like California, where
3
Hinton Helper, Dreadful California, ed. Lucius Beebe and
Charles M. Clegg (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1948), 55.
4
Johnson, 143.
5
Ibid., 143.
54
June 2012
it shared with the primary economic activity, placer
mining, elements of unpredictability and irrationality.”6 Thus, games of chance were very popular:
“Gambling was far and away the chief entertainment
in the diggings.”7 Some favorite card games were faro,
poker, euchre, whist, and nine-pins. However, monte
seems to be the most referenced in Gold Rush diaries.
In an image entitled Gambling in the Mines, FortyNiners are depicted playing this Mexican game of
chance (See Image 1). The players at the table look
pensive, as do their observers. Surrounding them is a
large crowd of miners, indicating that this amusement
attracted impressive numbers of men. Many miners
played card games in hopes of making quick money
when their efforts in the diggings were fruitless. Others
played simply for recreational purposes, to divert their
attention from the struggles of miner life.
Travel author Bayard Taylor described what he
witnessed at a card house in the San Francisco area:
Along the end of the room is a spacious bar,
supplied with all kinds of bad liquors, and in a
sort of gallery...a female violinist takes her
talent and strength of muscle to minister to the
excitement of the day…The atmosphere of these
places is rank with tobacco- smoke, and filled
with a feverish, stifling heat, which communicates an unhealthy glow to the faces of the
players...The dealer throws out his cards with a
cool, nonchalant air; indeed, the gradual increase of the hollow square of dollars at his left
6
7
Ibid., 177.
Ibid., 176.
Wicked California
55
hand is not calculated to disturb his equanimity.8
The vivid descriptions of the alcohol, violinist, tobacco
smoke, and suave dealer illustrate the enticing nature
of gambling halls. Card houses were a place of sensuality, community, and female company. Reverend John
Steele remarked, “It must be confessed that there was
such a witchery in the music, instrumental and vocal,
that the masses were attracted and entranced, and in
passing I found it difficult to resist the temptation to
go in and listen.”9 Bayard Taylor again remarked on
the lure of the gaming houses, stating that American
miners “have no power to resist the fascination of the
game. Now counting their winnings by thousands, now
dependent on the kindness of a friend for a few dollars
to commence anew, they pass hour after hour in these
hot, unwholesome dens.”10 References to gambling
halls can be found in nearly all miner diaries or letters.
While in the city of Sonora, Horace Snow corresponded
regularly with his friend Charlie about his adventures
in California. He described one card house, called the
“Long Tom,” where a French woman ran the tables.
She employed five men and had already earned over
forty thousand dollars from managing the “Long Tom.”
The building was “fifty feet wide and two hundred feet
long and all occupied as a gambling house.” Horace
Snow recorded that he was not able to have a conversation with his friend there because “the din and noise
56
June 2012
arising from the changing of money made it almost
impossible. Such a sight in New England would shock
the sensibilities of the whole land.”11 These remarks
illustrate how lucrative this business was. French
women were closely associated with running gambling
halls. They were often despised by the men because of
the large sum of money they acquired from miners'
earnings; the woman from Horace Snow's story certainly made enormous profits. This excerpt also reveals
how rowdy and crowded the card houses were, so
much so that they would “shock the sensibilities” of
non-Californians.
Cards were always accompanied by liquor, and
many saloons doubled as gambling halls. Both drinking and card playing were considered vices by most
mid-nineteenth century Americans. An observer
originally from the East Coast, Frank Soulé, commented on the saloons:
No place in the world contains any thing like
the number of mere drinking-houses in proportion to the population, as San Francisco. This,
perhaps, is the worst feature of the city. The
quantity of ardent spirits daily consumed is
almost frightful. It is peddled out in every
gambling-room, on the wharves, at almost every
corner, and, in some streets, in almost every
house. Many of the taverns are of the lowest
possible description—filthy dens of vice and
crime, disease and wretchedness. Drunken men
8
Bayard Taylor in H.W. Brands, The Age of Gold (New York:
Random House, Inc., 2002), 253.
9
John Steele in Maffly-Kipp, 123.
10
Bayard Taylor in H.W. Brands, 253.
11
Horace Snow, “Dear Charlie” Letters: Recording the
Everyday Life of a Young 1854 Gold Miner, ed. Muriel Neavin
(Fresno: Pioneer Publishing Company, 1979), 10.
Wicked California
57
and women, with bloated bodies and soiled
garments, crowd them at night, making the
hours hideous with their bacchanalian revels.
Americans and Europeans, Mexicans and
South-Americans, Chinese and even negroes,
mingle and dissipate together, furnishing a
large amount of business for the police department and the recorder’s court.12
This passage reveals important information. For one,
it illustrates the overwhelming presence of alcohol in
Gold Rush California. Drinking seems to have been
deeply embedded in the culture. Additionally, the
passage shows that saloons were a place of commonality between people of different races. Recreational
activity—particularly drinking and card playing—brought miners of all backgrounds together. As
evidenced by Soulé’s disapproving tone, such fraternization was unconventional at the time. Therefore,
leisure had the force to produce revolutionary social
conditions. Lastly, by stating that miners furnished
business for the police department, Soulé seems to
suggest that miners in saloons often created trouble.
This comment shows that while leisure had the power
to unite diverse people, it also had the power to cause
violence and destruction, an issue that will be explored
later more fully.
Bloody spectator sports, most famously the bulland-bear fights, were another common amusement for
miners. Johnson explains that “bull-and-bear fighting
was a Mexican cultural practice, one particularly well-
58
suited to the Sierra Nevada foothills, home to both
grizzly and black bears and within distance of lowcountry ranchos.”13 This sport was enjoyed by more
than just Mexican miners. Most large mining camps
had circular arenas to hold these bloody events, where
spectators gasped, cheered, and shouted. Johnson
adds, “Bulls were the real crowd-pleasers, enjoying as
they did a special relationship to notions of manhood
among Spanish-speaking peoples.”14 That this was a
popular amusement is not surprising. Gold Rush
California consisted of an overwhelmingly male population, many of them adventurous and thrill-seeking.
In an image entitled Sport in California- A Bull and
Bear Fight, a large crowd of spectators is depicted
cheering at such a contest (See Image 2). One man
even seems to be seated on another’s shoulders to
improve his view. The bull is illustrated romantically:
his muscles are defined and his face is fearless.
Historian John Boessenecker explains, “The beasts
came to symbolize those traits so important to young,
single men: physical strength, courage, determination,
fighting skill, and above all, stubborn refusal to back
down from a foe.”15 Furthermore, this sport, originating in Mexican culture, was exotic and new for American Northeasterners, who had probably never seen
such an attraction.
The unpredictable endings of these matches made
for great gambling. Miners would place large bets on
which animal they predicted would be the contender.
13
Johnson, 180.
Ibid., 181.
15
John Boessenecker, Gold Dust and Gunsmoke: Tales of
Gold Rush Outlaws, Gunfighters, Lawmen, and Vigilantes (New
York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1999), 161.
14
12
Frank Soulé in H.W. Brands, 252.
June 2012
Wicked California
59
The stakes and anticipation were high at these events,
where thousands of spectators sat in the crowded
arenas. One is reported to have seated 6,000 observers.16 The brutality of the sport attracted Forty-Niner
William Perkins, who described one of the most
thrilling bull-and-bear fights in Sonora. He wrote that
the “magnificent” bear weighed about fourteen hundred pounds. Then, the “splendid” black bull entered
the arena:
His whole frame appeared to be quivering with
rage; his tail was extended straight out in a line
with the vertebrae, and his eyes, one could
almost fancy, were flashing fire. He sprung with
a single bound into the middle of the ring, and
looked round profoundly and fearlessly on the
crowd; then commenced a low bellowing, and
tossing the dirt up with his hoofs. In a few
seconds he had caught sight of his antagonist,
and immediately, without the slightest hesitation, made a rush at him.17
This vivid description illustrates miners’ fascination
with the excitement and brutality of this Mexican
contest. They clearly admired the beasts for their
strength and willingness to fight to the death.
Boessenecker explains this admiration by suggesting
that the bull-bear matches emulated the combat ethic
of miners. “To die a glorious death in battle, whether
in war or personal combat, was something honorable
and even desirable. No fate was more romantic to the
60
single, young American male than to die ‘with his
boots on.’”18 Thus, this bloody spectator sport appealed
to the miners’ values of personal honor and bravery.
Similarly, Forty-Niners were attracted to bareknuckle prizefights. Well-respected boxers, as well as
the sport’s many fans, brought this tradition with
them to San Francisco when they came in search of
gold. Some of the most famous champions of the East
Coast fought in California: Yankee Sullivan, Chris
Lilly, John Morrissey, and Woolly Kearney. Prizefighting was so bloody that is was actually outlawed in
most of America, but these laws were not strictly
enforced in mining towns.19 It “went hand in hand with
the three great indulgences of the Forty-Niners:
drinking, gambling, and fighting. Sectional and cultural strife were played out in the ring: American
against foreigner, Englishman against Irishman,
Protestant against Catholic, North against South.”20
For the same reasons that miners were attracted to the
violence of the bull-bear contests, they were attracted
to pugilism. It embodied many Gold Rush sentiments:
competition, risk, violence, and honor.
Alliances with women constituted another important form of leisure in Gold Rush California. Women,
especially Anglo-American women, were rare. So
miners sought any form of interaction with females.
One activity through which men were able to seek
female companionship was dancing. Johnson explains
that dance halls “were so common that men rarely
18
19
16
17
20
Ibid., 161.
William Perkins in Boessenecker, 162-63.
June 2012
Boessenecker, 167.
Ibid., 177.
Ibid., 178.
Wicked California
61
bothered to describe them.”21 Men and women danced
to fiddle and flute. A favorite dance was the lancers
quadrille, imported to America from English and
Parisian ballrooms, in which four couples danced in
square formation. This dance consisted of five sets of
square dances, each one of the sets in a different
meter. It depended on cooperative execution of floor
patterns or figures, such as the tour de deux mains
“two-hand turn,” in which the couple turned while
holding hands or the chaîne des dames “ladies’
chain.”22 The polka also was well-liked in the camps,
and as with the lancers, it was accompanied by upbeat
and joyous music. Edwin Bryant, Alcalde of San
Francisco, recorded his experience at a Fandango in
his book, What I Saw in California:
I attended one evening a fandango given by Mr.
Ridley, an English gentleman, whose wife is a
Californian lady. Several of the señoras and
señoritas from the ranchos of the vicinity were
present. The Californian ladies dance with
much ease and grace. The waltz appears to be
a favorite with them. Smoking is not prohibited
in these assemblies, nor is it confined to the
gentlemen. The cigarita is freely used by the
señoras and señoritas, and they puff it with
much gusto while threading the mazes of the
cotillon or swinging in the waltz.23
62
June 2012
This description suggests that evenings at the dance
halls were lively, vivacious, and memorable. Painter
Charles Nahl, known as California’s first significant
artist, captured this spirit in his piece, The Fandango
(See Image 3). At the forefront, the men and women
dance joyously, looking carefree. Behind them there
seems to be a brawl, perhaps a result of drunkenness
or jealousy over the women. For miners, the most
attractive feature of this form of amusement was the
opportunity it provided for female companionship.
Miners’ relations with prostitutes constitute another diversion from hard work in the diggings. Often
described euphemistically as “escorts,” “companions,”
or “mistresses,” they were strongly desired. This is
certainly due to the scarcity of women: “In the Mother
Lode in 1860 there were 2,378 men and 147 women.
Prostitution was not only present, it was thriving…Prostitution was an accepted fact of California
life.”24 Due to the demographics of the region, it was
primarily non-white women who satisfied this demand.
Below is a description of an encounter between miner
Alfred Doten and a Miwok Indian woman. It is not
entirely clear whether she was actually a prostitute,
but Doten mentioned that he provided her with “presents”:
This forenoon two squaws came over from the
Rancheria and paid me quite a visit ? One of
21
Johnson, 164.
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s. v. "lancers," accessed
March 05, 2012,
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/329055/lancers.
23
Edwin Bryant, What I Saw in California (New York: D.
Appleton & Company, 1848), 328-29.
22
24
Harland E. Hogue, Prophets and Paupers: Religion in the
California Gold Rush, 1848-1869 (San Francisco: International
Scholars Publications, 1996), 85.
Wicked California
63
them was Pacheco’s wife ? she had her child
done up after their fashion and toted him round
her back with a string over her head ? As is as
usual she was accompanied by an old hag of a
squaw ? I gave her several presents and made
myself pretty thick with her and after a while I
got her [erasure] and took her into my tent and
[erasure] was about to lay her altogether but the
damned old bitch of a squaw came in as mad as
a hatter and gave the young gal a devil of a
blowing up ? Nevertheless I still left my hand in
her bosom and kissed her again right before the
old woman. She didn’t get cross at all but gave
me a slap in the face and ran away laughing. .
. I told the little gal in Spanish to come up alone
sometime and as she understood Spanish she
said she would if she could ever get a chance.25
The racial dimension of this encounter is impossible to
ignore. Clearly, the social norms for Miwok Indians
contrasted starkly with those of Anglo-Americans, who
would have been horrified at the thought of a married
woman—with a child—having relations with another
man.
Although leisurely activities were intended to be
entertaining and fun, they often led to violence. Regarding gambling—jealousies over large winnings, fear
of cheating, and alcohol consumption while playing—frequently fostered ill will. Historian Johnson
claims that, “Indeed, no other activity in the diggings,
64
aside from mining itself, provoked as much rancor as
gambling.”26 Describing his experience at a San
Francisco gaming house, Bayard Taylor observed:
“There is no appearance of arms, but let one of the
players, impatient with his losses and maddened by
the poisonous fluids he drank, threaten one of the
profession, and there will be no scarcity of knives and
revolvers.”27 Tales of Gold Rush violence are countless,
and—significantly—many of these brawls started
within the context of leisure.
Leisure’s dialectical relationship with morality is
apparent in examining Sabbath day observance.
Miners commonly broke the day of rest by attending
bull-and-bear fights, visiting game houses, and dancing at fandango halls. Sunday, proclaimed miner and
journalist Alfred Doten, “has ever been the grand
holiday throughout California.”28 He described the
typical miner’s holy day: he washed his boots and
clothes and went to town to purchase various necessities. He may have decided to visit a saloon while in
town, and “might be seen having a most unhappy time
lugging his provisions home over the rocks and across
the ravines” while intoxicated.29 Perhaps, if he enjoyed
cards, he visited a card house. Hinton Helper’s
experience in the Golden State led him to conclude
that “the Sabbath in California is kept, when kept at
all, as a day of hilarity and bacchanalian sports rather
than as a season of holy meditation or religious devotion.”30 Attending various spectator sports, watching
26
25
Alfred Doten, The Journals of Alfred Doten 1849-1903, ed.
Walter Van Tilburg Clark (Reno: University of Nevada Press,
1973), 125-26.
June 2012
27
28
29
30
Johnson, 177.
Bayard Taylor in H.W. Brands, 253-4.
Doten, 326.
Ibid., 326.
Helper, 86.
Wicked California
65
theatrical performances, dancing, and gambling
seemed to be the most popular Sunday pastimes. On
Pacific Street in San Francisco, the most “notoriously
profligate” street in the city, there were a shocking
fifteen dance houses. Although this “terpsichorean art”
was practiced every evening, it was Sundays when
attendees danced with the most “zest” and “animation.”31 Helper described a San Francisco billiardsaloon on Washington and Montgomery streets, noting
its magnificence in size and décor. He claimed that it
was furnished at an astounding cost of twenty-five
thousand dollars: “To this place hundreds of infatuated men betake themselves every Sunday and it is an
unusual thing, at any time, to find one of the tables
unoccupied.”32 Miner Horace Snow, in a letter to a
companion, distinguished Sabbath day observance
between the Northern and Southern people, in which
he accused Southerners of making “but little difference” on Sundays. Being from Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and strictly upholding his Christian roots, he
disapproved of the nonconventional lifestyle of his
fellow miners, remarking that there was “more intoxication, more fighting and more disturbance on the
Sabbath than any other day in the week.”33 These Gold
Rush observers all suggest that the holy day did not
merely go unobserved, but rather, it was a day of sin
and wickedness. In short, conscious transgression of
Eastern custom characterized California social life.
Louise Clappe, under the name of Dame Shirley,
made similar observations about leisure’s negative
66
impact on the holy day. The wife of Dr. Fayette Clappe,
Dame Shirley lived with her husband in mining camps
for fifteen months. In a September 1851 letter to her
sister, she described how one amusement was especially popular on the day of rest: “The rolling on the
bowling alley never leaves off for ten consecutive
minutes at any time during the entire twenty-four
hours…the only difference that Sunday makes is that
then it never leaves off for one minute.”34 Not only were
sporting events, drinking, and dancing present on the
day of rest, but so was violence—which was often
provoked by such pastimes. Dame Shirley wrote,
sarcastically:
We have had innumerable drunken fights
during the summer, with the usual amount of
broken heads, collar bones, stabs, etc. Indeed,
the Sabbaths are almost always enlivened by
some such merry event. Were it not for these
affairs, I might sometimes forget that the sweet
day of rest was shining down upon us.35
This comment reflects how commonplace violence and
disorder were on Sundays—Dame Shirley and her
contemporaries even expected such “merry events.”
To fully understand why these Sunday amusements were so unique to California, it is necessary to
contrast them to how the holy day was spent in the
rest of America, especially in New England. Sundays
34
31
32
33
Ibid., 88.
Ibid., 87-88.
Snow, 13.
June 2012
Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe, The Shirley Letters:
From the California Mines, 1851-1852, ed. Marlene SmithBaranzini (Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1998), 40-41.
35
Ibid., 132.
Wicked California
67
were devoutly observed. Businesses were closed and
recreation was forbidden. Very few travelled. Rather,
they stayed at home or with nearby friends and relatives after services. The pious spent the day in prayer,
rest, and reflection on the sermon. Sabbath observance was so important in the rest of the country that
all the states east of the Mississippi had Sunday
observance laws which prohibited businesses from
being open on the day of rest.36 These policies were
strictly enforced in the 1850s, except in the most
metropolitan of towns. Historian Sandra Frankiel
explains that Sunday laws were, from the AngloProtestant perspective, “essential not only to religion
but to civilization itself. Without it, men would…make
their day of rest a day for…wild behavior.”37
Puritan customs were completely foreign to California. The state’s Christian history was rooted in Catholicism. Roman Catholic missionaries certainly conducted Sunday mass, but they did not forbid the
territory’s Spanish and Mexican traditions of dancing
and feasting after liturgy. Following the discovery of
gold, this leniency—as the Protestants would describe
it—became even more prevalent. Mining camps lacked
stability, family, women, and many societal structures.
Without such restraints, Sunday activities encompassed more than the traditional Mexican celebrations,
they grew to include amusements of the most sinful
nature. “From almost the moment they arrived, minis-
68
ters began calling for a statewide Sunday law.”38 In
1855, state lawmakers passed, after much debate, a
prohibition on noisy and disturbing activities on
Sunday. Three years later, another statute was passed
which forbade businesses from operating on the
Sabbath. However, businessmen, miners, non-Christians, and Seventh-Day Adventists immediately
challenged these provisions. The church could not
effectively impose New England ideals in wicked
California.39
Church efforts were numerous, the most significant
of which was the Protestant church’s American Home
Mission Society (AHMS), which sponsored missionaries
to travel west. The general objective was to reverse the
state’s moral laxity by imposing order and stability. To
achieve this goal, the organization built churches,
encouraged Sunday attendance at services, converted
the dissolute, and founded societies that would perpetuate their message. Religious historian Laurie MafflyKipp explains that nearly all Presbyterian and Congregationalist ministers in California were commissioned
by the home mission agency. Other religious representatives though, such as the Methodists and Baptists,
came to California independently.40
Another way in which religious institutions responded to the California problem was by founding
schools— which were intended to stabilize society,
return to tradition, and spread the Christian message.
Many schools, from elementary to college level, were
36
Sandra Sizer Frankiel, California’s Spiritual Frontiers:
Religious Alternatives in Anglo-Protestantism, 1850-1910
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988),
47.
37
Ibid., 47.
June 2012
38
39
40
Ibid., 48.
Ibid., 48.
Maffly-Kipp, 71.
Wicked California
69
established in the 1850’s and 1860’s. For example, the
College of California, now the University of California
at Berkeley, was founded by Congregationalists. In
1851, two Italian Jesuits, Fathers Nobili and Acolti,
founded the first institution of higher education: Santa
Clara University. What is now St. Mary’s College of
Moraga was another Catholic school, originally in
Oakland. Methodist Reverend and Mrs. Edward
Bannister founded the College of the Pacific, later the
University of the Pacific, which was originally in San
Jose. These schools’ rigid guidelines demonstrate the
impact caused by the perceived threat of Gold Rush
leisure. For example, University of the Pacific prohibited “profane language, use of ardent spirits, gambling
or card playing, frequenting drinking saloons…Dancing was not to be thought of.”41 That these
activities were forbidden according to university policy
demonstrates the unmistakable prevalence and
seriousness of Gold Rush leisure.
On a smaller scale, Christian women attempted to
improve California’s character by forming their own
small classrooms. Sarah Royce is a prime example.
She instructed the neighbors’ children, as well as her
own, in her humble mining camp home. Passionate
and active in civic and religious duty, she taught her
students math, geography, literature, and the Christian tenets. Her efforts to uplift society went beyond
the classroom. In a memoir written for her son, her
deep religious convictions and unfailing effort to bring
civilization to an unruly society are apparent in other
ways. She joined religious groups and women’s clubs.
An excerpt from her account details an experience at
41
Hogue, 133.
70
June 2012
a San Francisco Benevolent Society event:
There entered the room a man, prominent for
wealth and business-power, bearing upon his
arm a splendidly dressed woman, well known in
the city as the disreputable companion of her
wealthy escort… in a few minutes he was waited
upon by a committee of gentlemen, who called
him aside, and told him they were sent, by the
lady-managers to say that they declined to
receive as an associate, or to have introduced to
their daughters, one who stood in the relation
occupied by his companion, and they respectfully requested him to invite her to withdraw
with him.42
This anecdote exemplifies an effort by the religious
community, specifically Christian women, to counter
the sinful pastimes of miners. They did so by organizing events which barred profane and distasteful
behavior. Sarah Royce and her contemporaries, who
were members of these kinds of religious organizations, provided alternate, regulated amusements.
Although religious institutions responded to leisure
and the moral crisis it perpetuated, their efforts fell
short of their high expectations. The goal was essentially to plant the Puritan faith in the frontier, yet
California proved to be an environment incapable of
such a substantial transformation. Religious historian
Frankiel explains that Anglo-Protestant theology
42
Sarah Royce, A Frontier Lady: Recollections of the Gold
Rush and Early California, ed. Ralph Henry Gabriel (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1932), 114.
Wicked California
71
presumed social elements which did not exist in the
Golden State: “If a minister was conservative, he
preached a strongly orthodox doctrine of sin and
guilt…this theology was based on a legal model—a
sinner was guilty like a criminal…But Californians had
no commonly accepted obligations.”43 There were no
enforced and fixed laws; the state was newly acquired
by the United States, and so it was not yet regulated
under federal law. Also, moral obligations that were
universally held in the East were in no way universal
on the frontier, where preexisting Catholic norms
provided few recognizable controls to self-indulgence
for Protestants. Frankiel adds, “On the other hand, a
more liberal minister might de-emphasize guilt and
damnation, preaching instead the love of God in
Christ. [Ministers] would liken Jesus to an intimate
friend or loving parent.” 44 This theological approach,
like the conservative one, was not suitable to California’s social atmosphere. The liberal model presumed
the social element of the ideal family, but the state
consisted of thousands of independent and single men.
The endeavor to replicate the moral environment of
the Northeast in California was unsuccessful, and
several religious representatives revealed their disappointment. Methodist preacher William Taylor remarked that the Golden State was “the hardest country in the world in which to get sinners converted to
God.”45 Baptist minister O.C. Wheeler complained
about the difficulty to “get a man to look through a
43
44
45
Frankiel, 9.
Ibid., 9-10.
William Taylor in Frankiel, 8.
72
June 2012
lump of gold into eternity.”46 Churchmen often felt
ineffective. Although they reported impressive Sunday
mass attendance, they were disappointed with the lack
of religious fervor and involvement in church activities.
The competition with secular entertainment inhibited
a spirit of religious devotion.47
It was simply too difficult to escape sin in California. Even where churches, ministers, and sources of
tradition did exist, they were never far from Californian
indulgences. The close proximity between virtue and
vice is documented by numerous Gold Rush contemporaries. Horace Snow, for example, recorded that he
attended a church gathering in a bar room due to the
scarcity of places of worship: “Verily,” he wrote, “this
seemed like bearding the lion in his den.”48 Historian
Maffly-Kipp explains that due to a lack of resources,
the first missionaries had to hold services in the
streets or in rented rooms above gambling houses,
dance halls, and even brothels. She explains that—even after the Protestants were able to build
churches—their efforts to replicate the moral atmosphere of the east were unsuccessful. “California
churches, albeit edifices hewn from New England pine,
designed by eastern architects, and constructed by
evangelical hands, were distinctive by virtue of their
placement alongside western gambling parlors and
dance halls and their occupation by young male
miners.”49 The sacred could not avoid the profane.
There were many other contradictions in the state’s
46
47
48
49
O.C. Wheeler in Frankiel, 7.
Maffly-Kipp, 88-90.
Snow, 13.
Maffly-Kipp, 84.
Wicked California
73
moral atmosphere: a Catholic priest who used liquor
bottles to hold altar candles, a Protestant minister who
substituted a brandy cask for a pulpit, or a fandango
dancer who would attend church after a rousing
evening.50
These inconsistencies reflect a unique and ambivalent Californian moral character. Hinton Helper
documented experiences which truly puzzled him. On
a Sunday afternoon, he attended a contest where the
bull, “Hercules,” would meet his match with a bear,
“Trojan,” in a San Francisco arena. Helper was tempted to witness the drama, but was conflicted about
witnessing such a violent amusement on the Sabbath.
To compromise, he decided to hear a sermon first and
attend the event afterwards. Below is an excerpt from
his records, which reveals a remarkable paradox of
that Sunday:
Of men, [in the crowds] there were all sizes,
colors and classes, such as California and
California alone can bring together. There was
one, however, who attracted my particular
attention on this occasion. He sat a few feet
from me on my left and the expression of his
countenance was neither intellectual nor amiable. His acquirements and attainments were
doubtless limited for he demeaned himself
rudely and exhibited but little dignity of manner. It was a strange metamorphosis he had
undergone since the morning. Only four hours
had elapsed since I saw him officiating at the
50
Johnson, 151-154.
74
June 2012
altar and feasting upon a substance which he
believed to be the actual flesh and blood of
Jesus Christ.51
Recognizing the man from Sunday mass at the bullbear fight just hours later, Helper seemed confused
and revolted. He continued the passage by describing
how holy the man seemed that morning, dressed in
vestments and assuming sacred duties. Later that
same day, he “sanctioned merciless diversions,”
carried himself in the most rude and disagreeable
manner, and “mingled on terms of equality with
gamblers and desperados.”52 For Helper and many of
his contemporaries, California was a society that
seemed indifferent to religion. This sentiment was
illustrated not just by rowdy and reckless miners, but
also by religious representatives. Of course, this
minister’s contradictory actions do not accurately
reflect the behaviors of Gold Rush clergymen in
general. In fact, the church’s stance on these bloody
spectator sports was unambiguous; it rallied against
them and pushed for legislation to have such brutality
banned. Nonetheless, Helper’s encounter with this
minister solidified his opinion of the Golden State:
morally depraved, chaotic, unstable, and—as demonstrated by the title of his work—dreadful.
The same day at the bull-bear match, Helper noted
another irony. This story, however, reveals sarcasm
rather than genuine repugnance. When Jesús
Alvarez—one of the managers of the afternoon’s
entertainment—was before the crowd of spectators,
51
52
Helper, 97.
Ibid., 99.
Wicked California
75
Helper experienced the following reaction to the manager’s name: “The…name sounded strangely in my
ears. It occurred to me that it was peculiarly out of
place in its present connection. What! Jesus at a bullfight on Sunday, and not only at it, but one of the
prime movers and abettors in it!”53 Although facetious,
Helper’s remarks reflect his overall sentiments about
the Californian religious and cultural character. His
comments, along with those of other Gold Rush
participants and historians who I discussed above,
demonstrate the incongruities of the state’s moral
landscape.
Secular entertainment undoubtedly posed challenges to the religious community and its efforts. Gold
Rush leisure was serious. It challenged codes of
normalcy and shaped a peculiar moral character. In
California, freedom and fun prevailed over self-control,
pursuit of wealth triumphed over frugality, and violence outweighed peace. Californian values collided
with those of the rest of the nation, and it was popular
pastimes which helped drive this clash.
In discussing the moral atmosphere of Gold Rush
California, there are certainly other components which
deserve mention. Gender and race are social elements
which undoubtedly helped to shape notions of morality
in the Golden State. With respect to gender, the
scarcity of women facilitated miners’ departure from
conventional behavior. The absence of women and the
family unit—civilizing social forces no doubt—helped
to make California a volatile society. Without mothers
and wives monitoring and regulating male activity,
53
Ibid., 102.
76
June 2012
masculine impulses were uninhibited. The youth of the
majority of these miners further explains their behavior. No longer restrained by the Protestant Northeast's
conventions, these men tasted freedom for the first
time in a fascinating land where there were no rules.
Race and ethnicity, undoubtedly, also complicated
the character of California. Immigrant New Englanders
worked and played alongside other immigrants of even
wider backgrounds: Chinese, Mexican, Chilean,
French, and Australian. They also interacted with
California's indigenous population. Miners brought
with them the customs of their own particular cultures, producing a confused definition of acceptable
behavior.
Furthermore, California—admitted to the United
States in 1850—was not effectively regulated by the
Federal Government. Since it was a new addition and
because it was located so far away from the country's
capital, violent and often illegal activity went unnoticed. The absence of governmentally-regulated law
and order during the state's infancy can be explained
also by historical context. The Gold Rush years coincided with a heated national debate about slavery.
California's chaotic situation was not on the Federal
Government's agenda during the critical years leading
up to the Civil War.
The gender and racial makeup, along with the
nation's preoccupation during the antebellum era, are
noteworthy factors which I was unable to thoroughly
explore in this paper. These elements, along with
miners' leisurely activities, created California's unique
moral laxity during the mid-nineteenth century.
Michelle Khoury is a United States history major
Wicked California
77
78
June 2012
with a minor in philosophy. She is a member of Phi
Alpha Theta, and she enjoys studying the history of
California, women, and Native Americans. Michelle is
graduating in June 2012 and will begin her legal
education next fall at UC Davis School of Law.
Image 1
Unidentified Artist, Gambling in the Mines, Bancroft Library,
Berkeley.http://bancroft.library.ca.gov/diglib/imagedata.cfm?id=888.
Wicked California
79
80
June 2012
Image 3
Charles Nahl, The Fandango, 1873, Crocker Art Museum,
Sacramento
Image 2
Unidentified Artist, Sport in California- A Bull and Bear Fight, 1873,
Lyons Limited Antique Prints,
http://www.lyonsltd.com/index.cfm/FuseAction/Main.PrintView/printID/
13 93.cfm?printReturnTo=Main.SubjectView%26SubjectID%3D24
Significance of Wartime Propaganda
81
The Development, Impact, and Longterm Significance of Wartime Propaganda on the Doughboys in World War
I: Personal Appeal vs Moral Imperative
Maggie Woods
“Army Strong” is now entering its sixth year as the
official recruiting slogan of the U.S. Army. It promises
that soldiers will possess strength in everything:
purpose, body, character, obedience, authority, and
success. Explicit ideals like patriotism and humanitarianism and national goals like vanquishing a
particular enemy have been absent since the unpopular Vietnam War, suppressed in favor of an emphasis
on personal benefit. A recruitment ad from 2011
emphasizes the Army’s role in individual soldiers’ lives,
showing poignant footage of soldiers with their families, at the funerals of their peers, and in training
alongside fellow recruits. With many Americans
feeling tricked into fighting an unnecessary war in
Iraq, the video avoids identifying a specific enemy or
political cause. The song “American Soldier” plays in
the background, its lyrics stating proudly a more
nationalistic message: “when liberty’s in jeopardy, I
will always do what’s right” and “I don’t do it for the
money…I don’t do it for the glory, I just do it anyway.”1
1
U.S. Army, “Army Strong: The Strength of the Nation,” The
Official Homepage of the United States Army, Army Media Player
video file, 9 Oct. 2011.
<http://www.army.mil/media/amp/?bctid=1211220712001>
(accessed 22 Feb. 2012).
82
June 2012
The 2011 version represents the blending of personal
and national appeals that the American government
used to encourage enlistment and draft registration in
1917. A study of the evolution of World War I enlistment propaganda places that blend in historical
context, demonstrating that propaganda provides an
accurate representation not of war but of popular
opinion toward war.
Many works have examined the propaganda of
World War I. Robert A. Wells’s “Mobilizing Support for
War: An Analysis of American Propaganda during
World War I” (2002) reveals the pivotal role of antiGerman propaganda in shifting public opinion toward
war. Jennifer D. Keene’s chapter “Morals and Morale”
in World War I: The American Soldier Experience (2011)
reveals American efforts to indoctrinate soldiers and
uplift their morale. Neither, however, addresses in
depth the soldiers’ relationship with the propaganda,
what messages they found most appealing, how they
reconciled those messages with their experiences at
the front, and how propaganda evolved in response.
Propaganda’s Task
By 11 November 1918, the United States had
mobilized approximately four million men to serve in
the Army, a staggering accomplishment considering
that the nation began the war with not even onetwentieth of that force. Despite the record of battles
whose Allied death tolls measured in the hundreds of
thousands, young American men eagerly enlisted
within the first week of declaration. Many did not
know even where the war was being fought and often
did not care. As enlistee William Langer admitted, “I
can hardly remember a single instance of serious
discussion of American policy or of larger war issues.
83
We men, most of us young, were simply fascinated by
the prospect of adventure and heroism.”2
Recruitment propaganda had to appeal to this
typical man, who did not necessarily understand the
war, was probably uneducated or even illiterate, and
was often motivated more by personal than national
interest. The resultant propaganda played to personal
ambition, emphasizing material enticements over
moral ideals. Once in the trenches and faced with the
reality of war and of their own unpreparedness,
soldiers realized the falsity of this materialistic propaganda. The official campaigns of the Committee on
Public Information (CPI) had presented the glories of
war, not the realities: body lice, equipment and food
shortages, and seemingly endless barrages around
their heads. The resolve of the recruits, however, was
fortified rather than undermined by the emotional
propaganda that persisted alongside the materialistic
propaganda. Many remained heartened by their
underlying belief in the morality of their mission,
inspired by German atrocity stories, posters, and films
presenting Germans as beasts that had to be vanquished for the sake of humanity.
The British Emotional Precedent
Even when the U.S. was still nominally neutral, the
British government primed American public opinion
through an effective anti-German propaganda campaign that set the sensationalized tone for later propaganda produced by the CPI. The British government
84
based its domestic campaign on Germany’s “Rape of
Belgium,” an event hyperbolized to dehumanize the
Germans. The initial intellectual justification, that
Germany had violated international law by invading
neutral Belgium, was quickly replaced with a more
successful emotional version of the event, in which
German soldiers became medieval barbarians who
raped and pillaged defenseless Belgians.3 The Germans’ trespass of international law became a transgression against human decency. Cultivating this
savage image abroad, Britain released the “Report of
the Committee on Alleged German Outrages” (Bryce
Report) in the U.S, a detailed list of every crime German soldiers committed in Belgium since 4 August
1914. Scholar Nicoletta Gullace asserts that the
Committee and its report were especially crafted to
appeal to Americans: the head of the Committee,
James Bryce, had served as British ambassador to the
U.S., and the report was released barely a week after
German U-boats torpedoed the Lusitania, killing
American civilians.4
This British “Rape of Belgium” justification for war
reverberated throughout American films, posters, and
spoken word as the most cogent and memorable
reason for American involvement. The Lusitania
became an irrefutable symbol of German aggression.
An enlistee was told in 1917 that the “sinking of the
Lusitania was the last straw that led us into the war,”
3
2
William L. Langer, Gas and Flame in World War I (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), xviii-xix, in James H. Hallas, ed.,
Doughboy War: The American Expeditionary Force in World War I
(Boulder: Lynne Riener Publishers, 2000), 9.
June 2012
Nicoletta F. Gullace, “The Blood of Our Sons”: Men, Women,
and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship during the Great War
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 22-23.
4
Ibid., 29.
85
even though that event happened two years earlier.5
Within a week of Congress’s declaration of war, President Woodrow Wilson established the Committee on
Public Information to present the war effort from a
distinctly American perspective, but built on previous
British efforts. Years of exposure to Britain’s publicity
made the rhetorical transition to war almost seamless
and might explain many men’s eagerness to enlist the
first day to fight in the Britons’ “chivalrous war.”6
Recruitment and Draft Propaganda
Appealing variously to men’s sense of sympathy,
patriotism, honor, adventure, and ambition, recruitment propaganda cultivated the perception that this
morally unambiguous war was not only a necessary
action against an irrationally brutal enemy but also an
opportunity for American men to prove and improve
themselves. CPI’s chairman George Creel considered
visual and auditory propaganda, such as posters,
movies, and the speeches of Four Minute Men, particularly important in rousing support among the nation’s considerable non-English-speaking and illiterate
populations.
Continuing the “Rape of Belgium”
tradition, incipient Hollywood produced anti-German
films featuring close-up depictions of the suffering of
French and Belgian women and children’s inflicted by
merciless German soldiers.7
5
Connell Albertine, The Yankee Doughboy (Boston: Branden
Press, 1968), 9-10, in Hallas, Doughboy War, 7.
6
Stewart Halsey Ross, Propaganda for War: How the United
States Was Conditioned to Fight the Great War of 1914-1918
(Jefferson: MacFarland, 1996), 3.
7
Robert A. Wells, “Mobilizing for War: An Analysis of
American Propaganda during World War I” (paper presented at
the annual meeting of the International Studies Association,
86
June 2012
Movie theaters provided venues for the remarkably
successful Four Minute Men, who addressed audiences while the movie reels were changed. These
speakers were initially charged with stirring up enough
enthusiasm for the war so that the draft’s introduction
would not result in riots, as had occurred during the
Civil War.8 Creel made sure his speakers appealed to
the broadest demographic possible. Typically wellknown, respected members of the local community,
such as doctors and lawyers, Four Minute Men represented different ethnic backgrounds, addressing
audiences in Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, MagyarHungarian, Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, BohemianSlovak, and Yiddish.9 The CPI standardized the Four
Minute Men’s messages by providing the speakers with
suggested material.10 The resultant speeches neatly
packaged Wilson’s and Creel’s public sentiments
explaining why America had to join the war.
According to scholar Carol Oukrop, the Four
Minute Men’s speeches established that the U.S. was
savior not only of the Allies but also of liberty, democracy, and humanity. The speeches referenced the
Rape of Belgium, the invasion and sacrifice of France
(fondly associated with the Revolutionary War’s General Lafayette), the sacrifice of England (in the spirit of
New Orleans, LA, 24-27 Mar. 2002), ISA,
<http://isanet.ccit.arizona.edu/noarchive/robertwells.html>
(accessed 14 Mar. 2012).
8
Lisa Mastrangelo, “World War I, Public Intellectuals, and
the Four Minute Men: Convergent Ideals of Public Speaking and
Civic Participation,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 12, no. 4 (2009):
612.
9
Ibid., 610.
10
Ibid., 618.
87
Anglo-American solidarity), and the faltering participation of Russia.11 This last was particularly important
once Russia liberated itself from autocracy. As President Wilson said in his speech to Congress on 2 April
1917, “The world must be made safe for democracy.”
Some speakers were so persuasive and passionate that
male audience members enlisted or registered as soon
as the speech ended. Corporal Martin J. Hogan
determined to sign up even while the speaker was still
talking and was the first to jump up when the speaker
“wound up by asking all the men willing to serve the
country, to see her through her present emergency
with rifles in hand, to step upon the stage.”12
Although Creel’s Four Minute Men program reached most of the home front population, including nonEnglish-speaking minority groups, it is difficult to
evaluate the Four Minute Men’s success in encouraging men to enlist or to register for the draft and in
inculcating in them specific justifications for the war.
Scholar Lisa Mastrangelo notes that the CPI declared
the program a success when, on 5 June 1917, ten
million men registered for the draft with “no publicized
riots and few protests.”13 Mastrangelo, however, doubts
11
Carol Oukrop, “The Four Minute Men Became National
Network during World War I,” Journalism Quarterly 52, no. 4
(Winter 1975): 635.
12
Martin J. Hogan, The Shamrock Battalion of the Rainbow
(New York: D. Appleton, 1919), in Hallas, Doughboy War, 8.
13
According to Alfred E. Cornebise [War as Advertised: The
Four Minute Men and America’s Crusade 1917-1918, Memoirs
156 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1984), 3-6],
the Four Minute Men started as a local group in Chicago on 28
April 1917 and were not endorsed formally by the CPI until 16
June 1917, but Creel took credit for starting the program [in
George Creel, “Public Opinion in War Time,” American Academy
88
June 2012
the CPI’s claim that the Four Minute Men were the
most effective recruiting tool. She attributes the
results to a pre-existing general desire to take part in
the war, a conclusion that does not take into account
the presence of three million draft dodgers, nearly
eleven percent of draft-eligible American men.14 But
the CPI’s claim is undeniably weakened by the fact
that only a few veterans were like Corporal Hogan, who
remembered enlisting after listening to a Four Minute
Man. Veterans instead widely echoed messages from
recruitment posters.
Posters visually displayed a variety of reasons to
enlist or register for the draft. Many fostered the
hatred that the British had planted: the famous
“Destroy This Mad Brute” poster (see Appendix 1)
depicted the German soldier as a drooling ape encroaching on America’s shore from a ruined Europe,
clutching a distressed, partially naked Lady Liberty.15
Propagandists expected that moral outrage at the
actions of the “Huns” (a term coined with the initial
“Rape of Belgium” propaganda that emphasized Germans’ barbarity) would inflame men to enlist. The
poster “Tell That to the Marines!” (see Appendix 2)
shows a man who angrily strips himself of his civilian
clothes after reading the newspaper headline “Huns
of Political and Social Science 78 (July 1918): 186-87];
Mastrangelo, “World War I,” 612.
14
Statistic from Jennifer D. Keene, World War I: The
American Soldier Experience (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 2011), 37.
15
H.R. Hopps, “Destroy This Mad Brute,” 1916, in Ross,
Propaganda for War, ii.
89
Kill Women and Children.”16 Few soldiers, however,
attributed their eagerness to enlist to moral outrage.
Propagandists rapidly revised their posters to
encourage enlistment and registration in ways that
might appeal to the majority of their audience, beginning a trend that sacrificed ideological appeals. The
emphasis shifted from explaining why America was
fighting the war to explaining why an individual
should enlist. Since moral outrage at Germany’s
belligerence and cruelty was not enough to provoke
sufficient enlistments, new posters presented more
material justifications.
The potential of upward
mobility was a popular theme: “Earn While You Learn”
posters (see Appendix 3) promised education and
vocational training to recruits, benefits which might
have been particularly appealing to this generation of
soldiers, a third of whom were illiterate.17 The considerable presence of these posters suggests their relative
success, but recruits had mixed opinions regarding the
realization of this promise, particularly its education
component. Non-English-speaking recruits were often
eager to receive free ESL education.18 Other recruits,
however, expressed annoyance that they were required
to take remedial English classes as a part of their
16
James Montgomery Flagg, “Tell That to the Marines!,”
1918, Library of Congress, JPEG,
<http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2008679015/> (accessed
22 Feb. 2012).
17
William Oberhardt, “General Pershing Says,” [1917 or
1918], Library of Congress, JPEG,
<http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/00651737/> (22 Feb.
2012); Hallas, Doughboy War, 20.
18
James M. Howard, The Autobiography of a Regiment (New
York: n.p., 1920), 25-26, in Hallas, Doughboy War, 22.
90
June 2012
training: they were “‘going over there to shoot Germans, not to write letters to ‘em!’”19
Many men attributed their enlistment to various
forms of social pressure or to the sheer excitement of
adventure overseas, and posters quickly adapted to
reflect these attitudes. Poster creators emphasized
feelings of camaraderie and subtly applied peer pressure, noticing that men often enlisted in groups.
Saddler John Joseph Brennan made a point in his
wartime diary that he and his friend Harry Willard
joined the Army together.20 Sergeant Dan Edwards,
already in the reserve, reenlisted the day of declaration, as did all of the men at his ranch. Even though
“[h]alf of them barely knew where the war was and
didn’t give a damn,” they were “sure one happy crowd,”
having enlisted together.21 Posters responded to this
social phenomenon by featuring calls to arms like
“Enlist Now and Go with Your Friends” or “Fight
alongside Your Friends” (see Appendix 4 and 5).22
19
Evan A. Edwards, From Doniphan to Verdun: The Story of
the 140th Infantry (Lawrence, KS: World Company, 1920), 19, in
Hallas, Doughboy War, 22.
20
John Joseph Brennan, My Own True Story of My
Experience in the Army ([Albany, NY?]: self-published, 1982), 9,
World War I: The Great War, in Veterans History Project:
Experiencing War, Library of Congress, 26 Oct. 2011
<http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhpstories/loc.natlib.afc2001001.00282/pageturner?ID=pm000100
1> (accessed 22 Feb. 2012).
21
Lowell Thomas, This Side of Hell (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, Doran, 1932), 73, in Hallas, Doughboy War, 7.
22
Arthur N. Edrop, “Make the World Safe,” 1917, Willard and
Dorothy Straight Collection, Library of Congress, JPEG,
<http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2001700145/> (accessed
22 Feb. 2012); Unknown artist, “Give the Guard a Fighting
Chance,” [between 1917 and 1919], Library of Congress, JPEG, <
91
Featuring pictures of recruits with captions like “He
Did His Duty—Will You?” (see Appendix 6), posters
evoked peer pressure like that experienced by Navy
firefighter Russell Powers, whose “buddies…wanted to
know why the hell [he had] waited so long, from the
6th. to the 8th. [of April] to get in.”23
Regardless of material or social incentive, the
prospect of transcending their mundane lives by
crossing the Atlantic to take part in a glorious war was
enticement enough for many young Americans.
“[H]ope and enthusiasm” characterized the attitude of
these enlistees: hope and enthusiasm for an adventure
in which they were the heroes “following the flag over
a shell torn field, with fixed bayonet.”24 Recruitment
propaganda did not disabuse soldiers of this idealized,
swashbuckling image of war but encouraged men to
enlist on the promise of adventure. Such posters
emphasized the once-in-a-lifetime quality of this
opportunity to travel outside of the U.S., expenses
paid. One poster (see Appendix 7) proclaimed, “Here
Is Your Chance To See FRANCE AND THE RHINE”
[original capitalization] in large letters overpowering
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/00651605/> (accessed 22
Feb. 2012).
23
Unknown artist, “He Did His Duty,” [between 1914 and
1918], Library of Congress, JPEG,
<http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/00651865/> (accessed 22
Feb. 2012); Russell Powers, interview by Tammy Lien, PDF
transcription of audio cassette recording, unknown location, 9
Nov. 1984, 1.
24
Robert W. Kean, Dear Marraine (n.p.: n.p. 1969), xi-xii, in
Hallas, Doughboy War, 6; Justin M. Klingenberger, in One
Hundred Thirteenth Engineers in France (Nancy, FR: BergerLevrault, 1919), 78, in Hallas, Doughboy War, 9.
92
June 2012
even the call in the bottom lines to enlist.25 William
Langer remembered that he and his friends felt keenly
the urgency of this type of message. Fighting in this
Great War was their “one great chance for excitement
and risk.” They “could not afford to pass it up” only to
continue lives that “would run in familiar, routine
channels.”26 The war did offer a break from routine,
but not in ways that Langer and most other enlistees
anticipated.
Camp and Battlefield Realities
The war in Europe resembled no other in its
stagnation and bloodshed, and certainly it did not
present the kind of adventure American men had been
promised. When recruits, both enlisted and drafted,
arrived at American and European training camps,
and later the European trenches, they discovered that
propaganda had sugar-coated or omitted entirely the
shortcomings of American military preparation. The
American government was undeniably unprepared for
war, despite the claims of the CPI. The Four Minute
Men tried to counter negative publicity by tailoring
facts to fit their message. They spoke glowingly of the
number of men signed in the different military branches, the activities of non-military government organizations, and the mobilization efforts of railways and
industries.27 They omitted (blatantly, in hindsight)
information about troops’ equipment and preparedness.
25
Unknown artist, “Here Is Your Chance,” [1917 or 1918],
Library of Congress, JPEG,
<http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/00651738/ > (accessed 22
Feb. 2012).
26
Langer, Gas, xviii-xix, in Hallas, Doughboy War, 9.
27
Oukrop, “The Four Minute Men,” 635.
93
Speakers neglected the fact that training camps in
the U.S. were still being built. The first divisions were
sent overseas to train under Allied leaders before being
re-inducted into General Pershing’s American Expeditionary Forces. Supplies, such as weapons and
uniforms, were insufficient because industry was still
mobilizing. Two months prior to the declaration of
war, in response to the government’s requests for
heavy artillery, machine guns, clothing, and other
necessities, suppliers predicted that production of
adequate numbers would take over a year.28 Recruits
trained with sticks instead of guns and in civilian
clothes instead of uniforms. When camps did manage
to provide uniforms, they were often the wrong size.
John Brennan complained that the seat of his pants
“were big enough for a couple of bread baskets to hide
away in.”29
Even the shock of camp life, with its rigid discipline
and shortage of supplies, did not prepare troops for the
conditions at the front. The comparative attitudes
toward the camps and the trenches are summed up by
Brennan as his division marched closer to enemy fire:
“We used to think that we were treated pretty rough
and had hard times. But as the days roll by and we
are getting nearer to the actual fighting, we seem to
look back and say those were the happy days.”30 Daily
rations in the camps had been almost five thousand
calories and heavy in protein to sustain recruits
during intense training, but “a feeling of gnawing
hunger prevailed almost from the period at which
28
Brennan, My Own True Story, 10.
30
Ibid., 56.
29
94
June 2012
campaigning began to the point where it ended.”31
Troops on the march and in the trenches relied almost
exclusively on canned foods for their one daily meal.
Some soldiers, with no other way in which to cope
with the shock but humor, joked that they envied their
“cooties” (body lice) because they at least “always ha[d]
something warm to eat.”32 Vermin such as lice and
rats presented unique problems. Soldiers had to
improvise in their encounters with cooties and rats, as
they had received no official warnings about their
existence, let alone their persistence. Their uninformed solutions were often just as harmful as the
pests themselves: some would steal kerosene to pour
over themselves, discovering much to their discomfort
that it burned them but left the lice unharmed.33
In addition to the living conditions, European
trench warfare was utterly alien to Americans and did
not conform to the image of open warfare depicted by
posters and films. The first episode of the popular
newsreel series America Goes Over (1918) cleverly
emphasizes Allied soldiers’ progress and motion: it
glosses over the stagnation on the Western Front and
shows instead activities like building bridges in Italy
and marching across open fields, projecting purposeful
31
Keene, World War I, 45; Leonard P. Kurtz, Beyond No Man’s
Land (Buffalo, NY: Foster & Stewart, 1937), 30, in Hallas,
Doughboy War, 183.
32
Charles Minder, This Man’s War (New York: Pevensey,
1931), 342, in Hallas, Doughboy War, 184-85.
33
Horatio Rogers, The Diary of an Artillery Scout (North
Andover, MA: n.p., 1975), 217, in Hallas, Doughboy War, 185.
95
industriousness.34 Also absent is footage of attacks on
the Allied trenches. During such attacks veterans
remembered being so “enveloped in tremendous fear”
that they lost the “ability to exert muscular control.”35
Veterans recalled images of themselves balled up and
clutching their knees as they hid in shell holes or
against the back walls of their trenches. This was not
the glorious, open-field fighting that “American soldiers love[d]”; it was not fighting at all, at least in their
minds.36 Even in battle, soldiers lost the worth that
propaganda had awarded them. They were reminded
not of their heroism but of their expendability: they
were ordered to take care of the horses before themselves because “a man could take care of himself while
a horse couldn’t, and…if a man was lost, another
could take his place, but horses were scarce!”37
The Doughboys’ Creative Response
Faced with these dire circumstances, many soldiers
found comfort in their own popular culture that
flouted official propaganda and represented not the
home front culture they left but their own current
experiences at the front. Officers who censored letters
were frequently disappointed in the lack of ideals
discussed by the soldiers; instead they read letters
34
U.S. Army Signal Corps, America Goes Over (Part I) (1918),
Prelinger Archives, Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free Books,
Movies, Music & Wayback Machine, online video file,
<http://www.archive.org/details/AmericaG1918> (accessed 22
Feb. 2012).
35
William F. Clarke, Over There with O’Ryan’s Roughnecks
(Seattle: Superior, 1966), 55-56, in Hallas, Doughboy War, 175.
36
37
George Mozley, Our Miracle Battery (n.p.: n.p., 1920), 48, in
96
June 2012
“about [the soldiers’] health, minor discomforts of
military service and family gossip.”38 Likewise, songs
popular among the troops were rarely patriotic but
rather raunchy, nonsensical, humorous, or dreamlike.
Army Field Clerk Will Judy recorded that the national
anthem was “sung very seldom and never of our own
accord.”39 A private, remembering a photograph in the
Literary Gazette of a chaplain blessing his troops, who
sang a Protestant hymn as they marched, laughed
because the songs sung by his own division “were as
bawdy as the collective imaginations of 3,000 horny
men could conceive.”40
Some soldiers did find strength in the humanitarian appeals of early propaganda, envisioning themselves as saviors of the overrun Allies and the free
world. Seeing the bedraggled dregs of British draftees
in his shared trench, Lieutenant Joseph Douglas
Lawrence realized that the fresh, ready-for-the-fight
Americans were indeed needed: Allied forces were
physically depleted and psychologically defeated in
their attitude toward the war.41 Americans were a new
hope. They were healthy and well-fed, and they sang
so raucously as they marched toward stagnant battle
fields that they had to be quieted so as not to attract
enemy attention. They were seen as the heroes, albeit
naïve ones who did not understand the rather unhe38
Keene, World War I, 60.
Will Judy, A Soldier’s Diary (Chicago: Judy Publishing,
1930), 125, in Hallas, Doughboy War, 199.
40
Albert M. Ettinger, A Doughboy with the Fighting 69th
(Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1992), 150, in Hallas,
Doughboy War, 197.
41
Joseph Douglas Lawrence, Fighting Soldier: The AEF in
1918 (Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, 1985), xiii.
39
97
roic ways of this war. One veteran reiterated the
propagandistic notion that he became convinced that
the Allies’ “fight [was] our fight, because it espouse[d]
the principles of the United States of America, democracy, justice, and liberty.”42
Others fought because they were convinced that
Germans were indeed monsters. Some harbored
personal vendettas against Germany after being
wounded, and others could not abandon their fellow
doughboys. However, a considerable portion possessed a zeal for annihilating the Germans that surpassed even these reasons, as the German atrocity
stories featured in early propaganda spread across the
frontline. Lieutenant Robert Hoffman, although he
conceded that “little homelike touches to the places
[the Germans] had left showed them to be men like
ourselves who could enjoy the simple pleasures of life,”
still believed that the Germans “weren’t quite
human.”43 He even quoted the Bryce Report to provide
an example of the rumors that the soldiers “were
always hearing.”44 Sergeant Arthur Havlin echoed the
sentiment that the Germans were inhuman, remembering that “the number of prisoners captured by [his]
division was materially less than what it should have
been” because the soldiers had heard the atrocity
stories and had decided that they could not suffer a
42
Arthur Guy Empey, “Over the Top” by an American Soldier
Who Went (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1917), v.
43
Robert Hoffman, I Remember the Last War (York, PA:
Strength & Health, 1940), 124, in Hallas, Doughboy War, 187.
44
Ibid., 185-86, in Hallas, Doughboy War, 186.
98
June 2012
German to live.45 This same mindset encouraged
Havlin’s division to die fighting rather than to risk
capture at the hands of the Germans.
Although wartime propaganda did not influence all
soldiers to the degree it did Havlin and his men, it did
shape most recruits’ expectations of war so that many
felt shock upon entering even the training camps and
were unprepared both physically and mentally for
trench warfare. Many veterans, however, remembered
their determination to fight more than any resentment
of their government. In his wartime diary, John
Brennan admitted, “I don’t know what would happen
to us if we got discouraged,” thinking only that “it
would be a sad ending.”46 Yet despite his sickeningly
uncomfortable sea journey to Europe, his confrontations with flesh-nibbling rats and body lice, and his
experiences of frantically hiding from shots and shells,
he affirmed that he and his fellows were “not downhearted” but eager to fight.47
Conclusion
Recruitment propaganda never features the unattractive realities of war. Instead propaganda reveals a
government’s effort to understand and use the prevailing emotions, needs, and desires of its citizens. In
World War I, propaganda adapted, not to reflect the
changing realities of war, but to account for public
reactions to war itself and to offer a variety of inducements to enlist, tailored to differing motives. Some of
the lessons provided by the development of World War
45
Arthur C. Havlin, The History of Company A 102nd Machine
Gun Battalion Twenty-Sixth Division, A.E.F. (privately printed,
1928), 66, in Hallas, Doughboy War, 186.
46
47
Ibid., 78.
99
100
I propaganda are evident in subsequent military
recruitment campaigns. When political goals are not
sufficiently clear or compelling, more emphasis is
placed on the benefits to the individual enlistee.
In the context of the shifting focus of World War I
propaganda, recruitment campaigns during subsequent wars can be seen as a measure of popular
support (or lack thereof) for political goals. The almost
total lack of political content in today’s recruitment
efforts indicates the political unpopularity of current
American military actions. Studies of popular opinion
during wartime often examine the impact of propaganda targeting civilians rather than potential fighters,
such as the famous Four-Minute-Men and poster
campaigns that promoted the purchase of Liberty
Bonds. However, the development of recruitment
propaganda provides just as, if not more, valuable a
gauge of public opinion toward war because such
propaganda has to convince people to sacrifice not just
their money but their lives.
Maggie Woods is double-majoring in history, with a
European emphasis, and Latin and Greek, with a
preference for Latin. She is also a member of Phi Alpha
Theta and Eta Sigma Phi. When she graduates from
SCU in 2014, she plans to continue her historical
studies in graduate school, probably on topics in
medieval English history. She thanks Professor Nancy
Unger for her painstaking work with her on the paper in
HIST 101.
Appendix 1
"Destroy This Mad Brute"
June 2012
101
102
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
"Tell That to the Marines"
"General Pershing Says"
June 2012
Appendix 4
"Make the World Safe"
103
104
Appendix 5
"Give the Guard a Fighting Chance"
June 2012
105
106
Appendix 6
Appendiz 7
"He Did His Duty"
"Here Is Your Chance"
June 2012
Tough on Black Asses
107
Tough on Black Asses: Segregation
Ideology in the Early American Jazz
Industry
Laurel Bettis
In the time it originated, in the early 1920's, jazz
music was seen as “black music” because it was
played almost exclusively by African-American musicians, so the racial culture of America directly impacted the struggles of the early jazz industry. When it
was just beginning, the jazz industry faced challenges
that related to how the highly segregated American
society perceived music that had strong African and
African-American influences. Jazz music originated in
the sounds of black musicians in the South, but it
soon spread to become a hugely popular genre in the
sprawling metropolises of the North. In the 1920s,
many Southern jazz musicians moved to Northern
cities like Chicago and New York, hoping to enjoy the
fame and affluence of the big city. Early jazz failed to
find a supportive white audience in the South, in part
because segregation and racism was so ingrained in
the early Southern jazz industry, and many black jazz
greats would probably never have been recorded if they
had remained in the South. The shift to the North
relocated jazz musicians to cities where racial segregation, although still prevalent, was not as severe and
enduring as it was in the South. Although jazz musicians continued to face racism and segregational
practices in the white areas of Chicago and New York,
these cities were the first places in which black musicians were really given a chance to be respected as
108
June 2012
artists. Though the jazz industry was founded in the
heart of the South, it developed into a respected genre
in the Northern cities because the racial culture of the
North allowed for some steps to be taken towards
racial integration.
What we would call “jazz” music was introduced to
America around 1917 in New Orleans, and it had an
entirely new sound. Jazz music borrowed the lilting
syncopation of ragtime and blues music and incorporated elements of harmony, rhythm, and improvisation
that made it a completely different type of music.
Because jazz was such a unique and revolutionary
genre, critics rushed to dissect the “roots” of jazz
music. In both modern and early jazz criticism, the
jazz sound is largely attributed to the experiences of
Southern plantation slaves. Although there is more
literature and controversy over the racial roots of jazz
in modern jazz criticism, it appears that critics of both
periods recognize slave spirituals and hollers as the
formative sounds of early blues music, which formed
the basis for early jazz music. Many critics posit that
the jazz sound traces its lineage through the experience of African-American slaves and all the way back
to the musical traditions of Sub-Saharan Africa. In
exploring the African roots of jazz, these critics examine the experiences of early slaves who, taken from
Africa, grew to become such an important part of
Southern culture in America. If we are to see early jazz
music as “black music,” and if we are to explore the
roots of the jazz sound both in Africa and on the
American plantation, it goes without saying that jazz
music in America is rooted in the South.
The more intellectual and in-depth views of jazz's
African heritage arise in more modern criticism and
109
history. Well-known and controversial historian Amiri
Baraka argues that the structure and style of early
blues (and, consequently, early jazz) descended directly from African call-and-response singing and
shouts. He contends that even as the jazz sound
evolved into a more mainstream format, it was uniquely and exclusively the music of African-Americans; as
jazz developed, “The blues timbre and spirit had come
to jazz virtually unchanged, even though the early
Negro musicians use[d] European instruments.”1 He
argues that, rather than being indicative of a unified
American sound, “Blues means a Negro experience, it
is the one music the Negro made that could not be
transferred into a more general significance than the
one the Negro gave it initially” (emphasis in original).2
Authors who view New Orleans as the birthplace of
jazz (as many do) often note the wide variety of cultural
influences in early 20th century New Orleans, and
credit several cultures in the city with inspiring the
unique sound of jazz. Because jazz developed in urban
New Orleans, “jazz borrowed from, among other things,
protestant hymns, British ballads, Spanish songs and
Afro-Spanish rhythms, French quadrilles and marches, various West African rhythms, and melodic elements found in spirituals, the blues, work songs, and
field hollers.3
Even in the time it was first being created, jazz
critics tended to attribute the core of the jazz sound to
both slave spirituals and to African musical traditions.
1
Imamu Amiri Baraka, Blues People; Negro Music in White
America (New York: W. Morrow, 1963), 78–79.
2
Ibid., 94.
3
Neil Leonard, Jazz and the White Americans; the
Acceptance of a New Artform (London: Jazz Book Club, 1964),
11–12.
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June 2012
Various articles published about early jazz in the time
it was being produced (from around 1917 through the
late 20s) indicate that critics in this period held a fairly
unanimous view of the relationship between jazz and
race. Judging by these articles, it appears that most
Americans in this period viewed early jazz music as
exclusively black music, and believed that both African
heritage and the American slave experience played a
role in the formation of the jazz sound. Some articles
were supportive of the up-and-coming genre and
praised the uniquely African musical genius of the
slaves. One well-meaning critic was thrilled that, “The
Negroes have simply used the weird African melodies
as a fascinating vehicle for Biblical truths.”4 A 1919
article by a white Swiss musician Ernest Ansermet
attributes the jazz sound to the “racial genius” of
African-Americans. He describes various technical
components of jazz music and contends that they are
based in instinctual methods of African self-expression.5 Not all these critics, however, were as wellmeaning and supportive as Ansermet.
For many early white critics, the African roots of
jazz were emphasized in order to indict the genre in a
very racist way. In exploring the role of African traditions in jazz music, critics commonly referred to
African civilizations and music as primitive or barbaric. Some jazz historians have noted that the early
jazz era coincides with the period in which the ideology
of “primitivism” was popular in America. Primitivism
refers to the notion that more primitive or uncivilized
4
American Council of Learned Societies, Jazz in Print (18561929) an Anthology of Selected Early Readings in Jazz History
(Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2002), 55.
5
Robert Walser, Keeping time?: readings in jazz history (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 9–11.
111
people were able to express their feelings more spontaneously and refreshingly than the civilized.6 The
innovative rhythms and harmonies of early jazz were
viewed by some white critics as basically modernized
tribal chanting, not valuable American music. A lot of
the criticism in this era, then, refers to jazz music as
base, cheap, and unsophisticated. The way early critics
discuss jazz music clearly reflects the way these critics
felt about black musicians. Criticism from the 1920s
to 1930s that focuses on the African roots of jazz
clearly evidences the negative racial perceptions that
were rooted in the Southern plantation culture of the
1800s. From the very beginning, jazz musicians faced
prejudice because jazz was “black music,” which, in
the South, translated as“slave music” or “African
music”. Most early jazz critics who attributed the jazz
sound to African influence demeaned jazz music and
dehumanized the musicians who originated it.
A 1917 article published in the New York Sun
discussed the aggressive rhythms of “contemporary
savages,” meaning jazz musicians, and confidently
announced that the word “jazz” came from “the old
plantation days, when the slaves were having one of
their rare holidays and the fun languished, some WestCoast African would cry out, 'Jaz her up,' and this
would be the cue for fast and furious fun. No doubt the
witch-doctor and medicine-men on the Kongo used the
same term at those jungle 'parties' when the tom-toms
throbbed.”7 In a 1921 issue of The Ladies' Home
Journal, a woman complained of the evils of jazz music
6
James Lincoln Collier, Jazz: The American Theme Song
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 17–19.
7
York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 6.
112
June 2012
and its ability to make its listeners sin. In explaining
the threatening nature of syncopated rhythms, she
states, “Jazz originally was the accompaniment of the
voodoo dancer, stimulating the half-crazed barbarian
to the vilest deeds. The weird chant, accompanied by
the syncopated rhythm of the voodoo invokers, has
also been employed by other barbaric people to stimulate brutality and sensuality. That it has a demoralizing effect upon the human brain has been demonstrated by many scientists.”8 She goes on to claim that
music-therapy scientists had discovered that syncopated rhythms can lead to atrophied brain cells, and
that “those under the demoralizing influence of the
persistent use of syncopation, combined with inharmonic partial tones, are actually incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, between right and
wrong.”9
Several articles published in the twenties in The
Etude, a music teacher's magazine, reflect similar
attitudes. In various articles and editorials by music
teachers, jazz music is referred to as “primitive”,
“barbaric”, “savage”, and “mongrel music.”10 The Etude
editors wrote and published an article that explicitly
explained that the magazine did not endorse jazz
music and believed that jazz music had no place in
music education. The article argued that young
musicians would waste their talent playing the common, cheap, and sloppy sounds of “raw jazz,” terms
that thinly veil their perception that black musicians
were sloppy and crude arrangers. The editors go on to
8
American Council of Learned Societies, Jazz in Print (18561929) an Anthology of Selected Early Readings in Jazz History,
153.
9
Ibid.
10
Walser, Keeping time, 41–54.
113
explain that not all jazz music is bad, only the barbaric
nature that is present in most dance-hall jazz. They
concede that jazz music is acceptable in a few forms,
such as, “high-class Jazz orchestras conducted by
Paul Whiteman, Isham Jones, and [Fred] Waring,”11 all
of whom are white musicians. Another particularly
pointed piece from The Etude was submitted by Dr.
Frank Damrosh, the Director of the Institute of Musical Art, later known as Julliard, and stated:
If jazz originated in the dance rhythms of the
negro, it was at least interesting as the selfexpression of a primitive race. When jazz was
adopted by the “highly civilized” white race, it
tended to degenerate it towards primitivity.
When a savage distorts his features and paints
his face so as to produce startling effects, we
smile at his childishness; but when a civilized
man imitates him, not as a joke but in all
seriousness, we turn away in disgust.12
These articles clearly demean African-American
musicians by accusing them of having “savage” African
roots. Indeed, it appears that black musicians in the
early years of jazz were taught to be ashamed of their
African roots; Art Blakey said in an interview that he
was once thrown out of school for presenting a history
report that portrayed Africa in a positive light.13
Although early jazz critics said some very racist and
negative things about African-American musicians,
11
Ibid., 42.
Ibid., 44.
13
Wayne Enstice and Paul Rubin, Jazz spoken here:
conversations with twenty-two musicians (Da Capo Press, 1994),
19.
12
114
June 2012
they were correct in attributing the sound of jazz to the
experience of black Americans in the South. The
originators of jazz and blues music were almost all
born in the deep South. Pianist Jelly Roll Morton and
saxophonist Sidney Bechet, who are often viewed as
the very first musicians to play what we would call
jazz, were both born in New Orleans. Many early jazz
musicians had very difficult childhoods, being raised
as African-American children in the harsh segregation
and racism of the South. Louis Armstrong, who
developed the quintessential jazz sound of the early
and mid-1920s, was born in a black ghetto of New
Orleans often referred to as “The Battlefield” because
it was so dangerous. He was incredibly poor in his
childhood years, raised by a single mother who occasionally worked as a prostitute to support the family.
Bessie Smith, often called the Empress of the Blues,
“lived the kind of life she sang about in her songs,”
born desperately poor in Tennessee.14
The South is also where the history of AfricanAmericans in the entertainment industry begins.
Before the Civil War, minstrel shows emerged as a
form of entertainment in the South and typically
featured white comedians in blackface who derived
their comedy from racial stereotypes and performed for
all-white audiences. After the war, some black entertainers managed to find a place on the stage in minstrel shows, but were “artistically constrained by white
audiences, who expected them to demonstrate demeaning racial stereotypes characteristic of antebel14
Ken Burns, Jazz (Washington, D.C.?: PBS DVD?;
Burbank, CA, 2000).
115
lum minstrel shows.15 As minstrelsy continued into the
20th century, the comedy of these shows was interspersed with more dance and musical numbers from
black entertainers. For this reason, elements of minstrelsy mixed with vaudeville and ragtime acts as these
genres developed, and the early sounds of ragtime and
blues were associated with black entertainers from the
very beginning.16 Some of the vaudeville shows that
evolved out of minstrelsy became fixtures in the “vice
districts” of Southern cities.17 Ragtime and vaudeville
shows in Southern speakeasies and dance halls
commonly featured exclusively black entertainers, and
as ragtime developed into early jazz music, some of the
minstrel traditions in vaudeville carried over into jazz
performances. In New Orleans, some of the very first
jazz clubs were owned by men who also sponsored a
minstrel troupe.18
Some minstrel acts developed into touring vaudeville companies that toured the South performing
mostly musical numbers. When jazz music developed
and became popular in the dance halls of cities like
New Orleans, similar touring companies quickly set up
concert circuits for jazz musicians to travel and
perform in. Some of the earliest gigs for jazz musicians
were arranged by the Theater Owner's Booking Agency,
or T.O.B.A., a company that hired musicians for a
touring vaudeville circuit throughout the South.
15
Kathy J Ogren, The Jazz Revolution: Twenties America &
the Meaning of Jazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989),
40.
16
Henry T. Sampson, Blacks in Blackface?: a source book on
early Black musical shows (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press,
1980), 1–20.
17
Collier, Jazz, 12–19.
18
Ogren, The Jazz Revolution, 41.
116
June 2012
Founded in 1920, the T.O.B.A. hired black musicians
to play for all-black audiences in white-owned clubs.19
In this circuit, the work was very tough and the wages
were terrible. This circuit “is remembered with humorous bitterness by many black performers as viciously
exploitative,”20 and is unsurprisingly recalled as an
acronym for “Tough On Black Asses.”21 Trumpeter
Clark Terry remembered the rough conditions of road
life on the circuit; being relegated to sleep in host
houses instead of hotels, he said in an interview, “I've
slept in places that were so filthy and damp I wouldn't
dare take off my shoes. I slept with my hat, overcoat,
shoes, overshoes, everything just to try to make it
through the night.”22 Even in the 1930s, when Duke
Ellington first signed on and began touring through
the South, he also recalls being turned away from
hotels and having to sleep on the train instead.23
The tours through the South continued through
the 20's and 30's as jazz increased in popularity, and
black musicians began playing for white audiences as
well as black audiences. Importantly, however, touring
black musicians were not allowed to perform for
integrated audiences at this time. Clark Terry recalled
playing in venues with “the type of segregation that
would make you bitter.”24 In his experience, either
whites would be dancing on the floor with black
19
Burton W Peretti, Jazz in American Culture, The American
ways series (Chicago, Ill: Ivan R. Dee, 1997), 46.
20
Christen K. Thomsen, “Jazz: From ‘Race’ Music to ‘Art’
Music? When Jazz Was ‘Popular’ Music: Incorporation and
Transformation,” Storia Nordamericana 7, no. 2 (July 1990): 82.
21
Ogren, The Jazz Revolution, 44–45.
22
Enstice and Rubin, Jazz spoken here, 275.
23
Burns, Jazz.
24
117
patrons sitting up in the balcony, or occasionally there
would be black patrons dancing while the white
patrons watched from the balcony. With the addition
of white patrons to the T.O.B.A. halls, jazz musicians
sometimes faced daily threats and horrible racism
from the white people they encountered on these
tours. While on tour in Arkansas, Dizzy Gillespie
offended a patron at a white dance when he ignored a
penny the patron had thrown onto the stage. The man
later waited for Dizzy to come out of the bathroom and
assaulted Dizzy with a broken beer bottle, and Dizzy
wound up with seven stitches on his head.25 Fats
Austin and Clark Terry were nearly killed in Jacksonville, Florida when Austin bumped into an old white
woman and she claimed he tried to knock her down.
Both musicians were chased by a murderous mob and
only escaped by hiding in a construction site for
several hours and covering themselves with mud and
debris.26 In 1927, while Bessie Smith was giving a tent
concert in Concord, North Carolina, one of her band
members saw six Klu Klux Klan members approaching
the tent, and warned Bessie to start running. Smith,
who was known for her tough attitude, ran towards
the KKK instead, hollering at them to start running
before she got the whole audience to chase them down.
The klansmen fled.27
Even into the 1940s, by which time there were
several white jazz musicians and groups, integrated
bands were not allowed to tour in the South. In 1941,
Artie Shaw hired black trumpeter Hot Lips Page to go
25
Ibid., 179.
26
Gene Lees, Cats of Any Color: Jazz Black and White (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 189.
27
Burns, Jazz.
118
June 2012
on tour with his band through the South. A few weeks
later, he was informed that the booking agency wouldn't allow him to travel with a black musician in his
band. His agent later presented him with a compromise, saying that Page could tour with the band, but
he had to be 15 feet away from any of the other white
band members during all parts of the performance.
Artie Shaw refused to agree to that sort of racism, and
canceled his tour rather than firing Page.28 Shaw later
hired Billie Holiday to sing with his band, making her
the first black singer to perform publicly with a white
band, and was met with a lot of disapproval and
scandal. He was barely allowed to tour with Holiday,
but was shocked at the way she was treated by some
audiences. In some venues in the South, he recalls
patrons asking him to “have the nigger wench since
another song.”29
The legacy of minstrelism and blackface comedy
in Southern venues had a lasting impact on jazz
music. Some artists even recall that their music
wasn't accepted and couldn't be performed for a white
audience unless it incorporated aspects of Southern
minstrel shows or blackface performances, even in
more Northern locations. When Duke Ellington began
playing vaudeville shows in Harlem in 1926, he and
his band wore powder to lighten their faces when
playing for white audiences.30 Billie Holiday recalls
similar experiences playing vaudeville shows on the
T.O.B.A circuit in the South in her autobiography. She
28
Artie Shaw, “100 Years Of Jazz Clarinetist Artie Shaw,”
interview by David Bianculli, May 21, 2010, National Public
Radio,
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=126972706.
29
Ibid.
30
Burns, Jazz.
119
toured with Count Basie and a variety of other vaudeville acts, including a white Rockette-style troupe of
dancers. After the first couple of shows, she says, the
agency received too many complaints about “all those
Negro men up there on stage with those bare-legged
white girls,”31 and they had to rework the entire show.
With the revisions to the show, the white dancers
opened the show in a chorus line wearing black masks
and “mammy getups.”32 Even worse, they told Holiday
that her skin was too light, and she might be mistaken
for a white woman in the lighting, so she wasn't
allowed to sing with Basie's band of black musicians
unless she wore dark grease paint on her face.33
Holiday and Basie were both furious, but they were
bound by contract, and so Holiday was forced to
perform in blackface.
In 1930, Duke Ellington went to Hollywood to
appear with his band in a comedy called “Check and
Double Check,” featuring the popular comedy duo
Amos and Andy, two white comedians who performed
in blackface as bumbling, stereotyped black characters. The studio that produced the film, fearing that
the bands' two members with the lightest skin would
be seen as white, also required them to darken their
faces.34 The infamous Cotton Club in Harlem, where
several musicians including Duke Ellington and Cab
Calloway began their careers, played only for white
audiences, although the club was owned and run by
African-Americans. Once this location became a club
for white patrons, the black performers had to change
31
32
33
34
Walser, Keeping time, 99.
Ibid., 100.
Ibid.
Burns, Jazz.
120
June 2012
their acts to include more minstrel traditions35. For
example, most early minstrel shows were set on
antebellum plantations in the South, and the plantation setting colored the creation of early jazz clubs
such as the Cotton Club in New York and a few Plantation Clubs in other cities.36
Thus, jazz music originated and gained popularity
in Southern vice districts and touring circuits. In the
late 1910s and 1920s, however, several changes
occurred that encouraged Southern jazz musicians to
take their acts up North. For one thing, a market for
authentic blues and jazz music began to develop in
New York. In 1921, the first all-black recording company was created in New York and recorded Southern
artists under the label Black Swan.37 Southern jazz
and blues legends like Ethel Waters, Trixie Smith, and
Fletcher Henderson were paid to make recordings in
Long Island, New York. Some jazz musicians also went
to the North because that's where their touring performances took them. Several famous New Orleans
musicians, including Louis Armstrong, went North for
the first time playing for dances on Fate Marable's
river boats.38 One of the more negative factors that
influenced the regional shift of jazz was the closing of
Storyville in 1917. Storyville was the most notorious
vice district in 1910s New Orleans, and was home to
some of the original jazz greats and some of the first
jazz clubs. However, in 1917, this secretary of the Navy
ordered that Storyville be shut down because of its
notorious crime and prostitution rings, forcing many
35
36
37
38
Sampson, Blacks in blackface, 52–53.
Ibid., 75–77.
121
jazz musicians out of the clubs where they made a
living.39 Many of the most talented jazz musicians
decided to move to the North, where they had a growing audience waiting for them. In letters he wrote
shortly before his death, New Orleans jazz legend Joe
“King” Oliver speaks of saving up for a ticket to New
York, where he knew he would be able to find good
work as a musician.40 Some Storyville players were
forced instead to find work in the T.O.B.A. circuit or
even in the traveling minstrel shows that survived into
the 1920s.41 Many musicians and performers were also
swept up in the “Great Migration” of the 1920s, in
which thousands of black Southerners relocated to
Northern cities in the hope of finding stability and
success.42 In this period, New York and Chicago
became the crucial hubs in which jazz music was
played and developed. Though musicians in these
cities also faced some harsh racism, and very often
played in segregated clubs, it was in these cities that
jazz music became available to audiences of all different races, and it was in these cities that the first
integrated audiences enjoyed jazz.
The story of jazz music and segregation is particularly complex and problematic in New York, where jazz
music gained popularity in two very different neighborhoods, Harlem and Times Square. The midtown area
surrounding Times Square and Broadway was a
predominantly white neighborhood, mostly middle and
upper class. In Harlem, the jazz audience consisted
39
Nat Shapiro, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya; the Story of Jazz by
the Men Who Made It (New York: Rinehart, 1955), 185.
41
Ibid., 67.
42
Burns, Jazz.
40
122
June 2012
mostly of very poor black residents.43 However, before
jazz became a music sensation in New York, the city
showed itself to be much more hospitable to black
musicians than the South had been. James Reese
Europe founded and played in the first African-American group to ever make records in 1913.44 During
World War I, Europe led the band for the all-black
Fifteenth Regiment, and incorporated his syncopation
and ragtime styles into their music. He was extraordinarily popular in Europe, and came back as an honored and decorated soldier: he was the first AfricanAmerican officer to see combat in this war. Unlike
some musicians that came after him, Europe was
proud that his band played “black music;” in a 1919
article, he referred to jazz as “negro music” and even
argued that black musicians should only play music in
this style, saying that, “negroes should write negro
music. We have our own racial feeling and if we try to
copy whites we will make bad copies.”45 Upon his
return, James Reese Europe and his band were given
a victory parade, and he was celebrated as the pride of
Harlem as well as of midtown New York. Supportive
integrated crowd came to watch his band play in New
York and later in other Northern venues where they
went on tour. When Europe was killed by an angry
coworker in 1919, people from all over New York were
devastated, and New York granted him the first official
funeral granted to a black citizen.46
After Europe's death, however, it seems that jazz
music lost its popularity with white audiences in
43
Ibid.
45
York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 12–14.
46
Burns, Jazz.
44
123
midtown New York, and the sounds of early jazz began
to grow more and more popular in Harlem. When jazz
music came from New Orleans to New York in the
1920s, it had been played for several years already as
ragtime or vaudeville acts of urban “vice districts,” and
jazz almost immediately found a place in the
Prohibition-Era speakeasies of poor Harlem neighborhoods. Here, black musicians played for black audiences, and segregation did not become an issue until
a modified version of this Southern music became
popular with white audiences.
Because early jazz music was so rooted in Southern
ragtime and blues music, it was typically played by a
small combo of instruments including piano, drums,
bass, and sometimes brass instruments or vocal
soloists. Early jazz music was played in small ensembles and frequently incorporated improvisation into its
performances. Pianists in the jazz clubs of New Orleans and other early jazz cities were defined by their
ability to improvise, and clubs frequently held “cutting
contests” between musicians to determine who had the
most improvisational skill.47 As jazz gained popularity
in the North, however, many white audiences were put
off by the hot jam sessions and cutting contests that
were typical of Southern jazz performances. In the
popular ballrooms of Harlem and Times Square, there
grew a high demand for jazz music that one could
dance to.48 The dance music, which became what we
would call swing music, was typically played by a
larger ensemble of piano, bass, drums, and several
brass instruments. The music required specific ar47
Ogren, The Jazz Revolution, 51–55.
Samuel Barclay Charters, Jazz; a History of the New York
Scene (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1962), 119.
48
124
June 2012
rangements for a large ensemble and used written
sheet music, unlike the early speakeasy jazz that was
improvised over a set of unwritten chords. This form of
jazz music became extremely popular in New York,
especially with white audiences in the ritzy ballrooms
of the Times Square area. In his autobiography, Duke
Ellington recalls that he could play with a small combo
in Harlem clubs, but always had to get an 11-piece
band together for gigs at the Cotton Club, because that
music was in such high demand.49
Fletcher Henderson, who was one of the first black
musicians to arrange jazz music for a larger ensemble,
gained popularity first in the black clubs of Harlem,
but soon was in demand by white audiences. He was
booked to play for the Roseland, an all-white club in
the Times Square area, and soon many black musicians were taking the stage in this part of town, but
they were playing a different kind of jazz. Around the
same time Henderson was experimenting with what
would become the “Big Band” sound, a white musician
named Paul Whiteman formed the first popular 12piece white jazz band and was immediately named the
“King of Jazz,” much to the disgust of many black
musicians. Whiteman frequently bought arrangements
from Henderson, and between their two bands,
Henderson's style of jazz was the first jazz music that
was widely accepted by white audiences, and this style
diverged significantly from the sounds of New Orleans
and even other Northern cities. When Louis Armstrong
moved from Chicago to New York and began playing
with Fletcher Henderson, he was told that his style
49
Duke Ellington, Music Is My Mistress, A Da Capo
paperback (New York: Da Capo Press, 1976), 75–77.
125
was “too black” for the Roseland.50
With jazz growing in popularity with both white and
black audiences, the music began to flourish in
segregated speakeasies. Popular black musicians
began booking gigs to play in midtown clubs for white
audiences. Clubs like The Roseland and The Palace
became important venues for African-American musicians to perform, and they became enormously popular with upper-class white audiences. Later into the
twenties, however, many white audience members
became interested in what would be considered a more
fundamental jazz sound. In this era, many Harlem
clubs were suddenly flooded with white patrons, and
although several Harlem clubs were still segregated, it
was in Harlem that the first integrated audiences for
jazz music formed.51
In the early 1920s, virtually all of the jazz clubs in
New York were segregated. Even some of the black
clubs of Harlem changed their rules to become establishments for exclusively white patrons, while retaining
the black musicians as entertainers. The Cotton Club,
which became the most famous jazz speakeasy in
Harlem by the mid-twenties, became a whites-only
club when white listeners began flocking to Harlem,
although the owners of the club were black. Even
before the Cotton Club and other all-white Harlem
clubs existed, some white patrons would attend
“midnight rambles” in this part of town. These were
performances for white audiences in a black venue
(usually more underground venues in the vice districts) after the regular show for black patrons had
50
51
Burns, Jazz.
Ibid.
126
June 2012
ended,52 and often featured more lewd and racy
material than the other vaudeville shows. In other
clubs, however, jazz speakeasies became places where
all races could come and enjoy jazz music freely. The
Savoy Ballroom in downtown Harlem is noted by many
to be the first integrated club in America, and here
black and white patrons alike danced to Fletcher
Henderson and other jazz greats. Soon, other club
owners began secretly allowing black and white
audience members to mingle in the previously allblack Harlem clubs. These establishments, called
“black and tans,” almost always featured black musicians, but “were designed to draw substantial white
patronage.”53 In these clubs, it was more common to
have a mix of black and white patrons, and the respect
for the musicians seemed to outweigh and neutralize
most racial tension in the audience. In fact, some
argue that whites frequented the black and tans
specifically because they were attracted to the idea of
black entertainment, and they “believed that the black
roots of jazz were what gave it value.”54
Black and tans existed as early as the late 19th
century and continued to exist for decades. In the
earlier years of the black and tans, the venues usually
had separate sides of the room for black and white
patrons, but by the 1930's all the patrons interacted
freely and “segregation never crossed anyone's mind.”55
In the early jazz years, lots of white listeners were
attracted to the dangerous notions associated with the
black subculture of jazz. Music that was played by
52
53
54
55
Ibid., 16–17.
Collier, Jazz, 18.
Ibid.
Ibid., 16.
127
black musicians was viewed as more exotic and
valuable, and white audiences flocked to various types
of venues to watch black bands play. However, the
appreciation that white audiences had for AfricanAmerican musicians cannot always be viewed as
racially positive. Again, the notion of primitivism
affected white Americans' perception of jazz music.56
Although the idea that jazz music was more expressive
and exciting eventually helped to draw an audience,
rather than making people regard jazz as “savage
music,” it also carried with it some very negative racial
stigmas. When Duke Ellington began headlining at the
Cotton Club in the mid-twenties, the white patrons of
the club excitedly referred to his sound as “jungle
music,” a term which plagued African-American
musicians in midtown New York for decades afterwards.57
Even as jazz music gained popularity in the clubs
of New York, the jazz recordings of black musicians
were not nearly as readily available or as popular in
midtown New York. Influential jazz writer John Hammond recalls that, after he first fell in love with jazz
music in London, he had a difficult time finding
recordings of black jazz musicians in New York City.
White-owned record stores typically wouldn't stock the
music of black musicians, and the records of those
musicians were marketed only towards the “Negro
audience”. In order to find recordings of Sidney Bechet, Mamie Smith, and others, Hammond had to go to
record stores in the black ghettos of New York.58 In his
time, before the Harlem craze, “there was no such
56
57
58
Ibid., 18.
Burns, Jazz.
Walser, Keeping time, 88.
128
June 2012
thing as integration. There were very few places where
the White public went, where Negro musicians could
be heard,”59 and New York was just as segregated as
the South. Hammond later became one of the most
influential people in the history of jazz music because
he wanted to bring the true jazz sounds of Harlem to
a wider audience. He began to write about jazz music,
and he importantly urged Americans to re-evaluate
their perception of black jazz musicians. Hammond
organized jam sessions for black musicians on local
radio stations, and later convinced a British record
label (for no American labels would) to record and
produce records of the black musicians in Harlem.
Many jazz musicians in the 1920s owed their careers
to John Hammond.60
New York proved to be a pretty hospitable city to
black jazz musicians as the “jazz craze” of the 1920s
continued. Blues legend “Big” Joe Turner fondly recalls
that he was given a paying music job within his first
few hours of playing piano in a New York club61. Duke
Ellington and Louis Armstrong were huge stars in both
Harlem and Times Square, and they became respected
public figures through their music.62 In New York,
they were truly respected as artists, and they enjoyed
all the wealth and fame that had previously been
afforded only to white musicians. It was in New York
City that these musicians became hugely popular with
both black and white audience, so it was in this city
that these musicians made the first attempts at using
jazz for a change in the racial culture of the United
59
Ibid., 89.
Burns, Jazz.
61
Shapiro, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya; the Story of Jazz by the
Men Who Made It, 174.
62
Burns, Jazz.
60
129
States. Although not all of these early attempts were
successful, it is important that some of the first calls
for integration came out of the jazz industry in New
York. Although jazz retained its popularity in Southern
cities such as New Orleans, these Southern venues
were almost never integrated, and the black artists in
these areas never gained the respect from white
audiences that would have allowed them to call for
change.
In 1938, radical literary journal New Masses
sponsored a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City
entitled “From Spirituals to Swing,” or “An Evening of
American Negro Music”. This concert incorporated
pieces from African tribal music up through big band
and swing hits, and chronologically tracked the
development of “black music” in America. The concert
was played by jazz legends including Count Basie,
Lester Young, Walter Page, and Earl Warren. Most
importantly, the music was played by an integrated
orchestra, and the program notes very clearly explained that the aim of the concert was to create a
world in which the great jazz artists, black and white,
would be able to play together publicly. The concert
was dedicated to Bessie Smith, who had died the
previous year, and the program notes discussed at
length the struggles faced by black musicians and the
lack of credit they received for the music they produced.63 Some jazz artists also attempted to put
integrated bands on the Broadway stage. Dave Brubeck also wrote a musical entitled The Real Ambassadors in the late fifties that incorporated pro-integration
ideals by poking fun at hypocritical racism, and
suggesting that black musicians were the new face and
63
130
June 2012
voice of America.64 The show starred Louis Armstrong
and Carmen McRae, and although some of the music
from this work survived, Brubeck was never allowed to
produce it onstage because the cast was integrated.65
By this time, all-black musicals had already been
appearing onstage, such as Gershwin's 1935 opera,
Porgy and Bess, but an integrated cast was still
considered unacceptable for Broadway.
The segregation of the jazz industry remained at a
national level long after New York musicians attempted
to make some changes in the practices of the industry.
Artie Shaw recalls having to give up TV appearances
because he had black musicians in his band.66 Dave
Brubeck also recalls an instance in which he had to
give up a TV slot to Duke Ellington because he had
just hired a black bassist, and Ellington happened to
have an all-black band at the time. Brubeck's managers offered a compromise where his bassist could be
heard and recorded when the band played their set,
but couldn't be seen on television. Brubeck refused to
play with those restrictions, so he lost his spot.67
Similarly, Ellington often had to turn down gigs and
television appearances when he had Louis Bellson,
who was white, on the drums.68 With this example in
mind, Brubeck claims that by this time (the late
64
Dave Brubeck, “Celebrating Jazz Pianist Dave Brubeck’s
90th Birthday,” interview by David Bianculli, December 3, 2010,
National Public Radio,
65
Ibid., 86–88.
66
Artie Shaw, “100 Years Of Jazz Clarinetist Artie Shaw.”
67
68
Dave Brubeck, “Celebrating Jazz Pianist Dave Brubeck’s
90th Birthday,” interview by David Bianculli, December 3, 2010,
National Public Radio,
131
fifties), people didn't have too much of a problem with
black musicians but integration remained a poignant
issue.69
In time, jazz music gained popularity with the
audiences of New York, and the African-American jazz
musicians grew to be respected nationwide for the
music they produced. Popular jazz musicians like
Louis Armstrong in New York were able to make and
sell recordings that gave them a national following.70
As the radio became more and more important to the
musical culture of America, the Cotton Club began
broadcasting live recordings of the in-house jazz band
on certain nights of the week. Duke Ellington recalls in
his autobiography that it was because of the Cotton
Club's broadcasts that he gained a national and
international fan base.71 As their music reached a
national audience, jazz artists gained enough respect
and popularity to push for integration on a national
level. Even as early as the thirties, some musicians
were attempting to portray African-Americans in a
more positive light through cinema and theater. Duke
Ellington was one of the leading African-American
musicians to push for equality in this period, and he
produced several works that were intended to support
and empower African-Americans. In 1934, he worked
on a short film for Paramount entitled Symphony in
Black that avoided the “stereotypical, racist depictions
of African-Americans which mar most early jazz
films.”72 In 1941 he wrote Jump for Joy, a musical
which Ellington stated was an “attempt to correct the
69
71
Ellington, Music Is My Mistress, 77.
72
Fred Waller, Symphony in Black (Paramount Pictures,
1935), http://www.redhotjazz.com/sib.html.
70
132
June 2012
race situation in the U.S.A. through a form of musical
propaganda.73 Ellington’s most deliberate and intensive piece that addressed the race in American society
premiered in 1943, a 3-part symphonic piece entitled
Black, Brown, and Beige. This work traced the AfricanAmerican musical history all the way from indigenous
African drumming up through modern Harlem jazz.74
Although this work wasn't brought back to the stage
until 1977, Ellington importantly drew attention to the
black experience in America and how African-Americans had come to express their experiences through
music.
Although not all of the attempts to change the
racial perceptions of white audiences in America were
successful at the time, the fact that jazz music remained extraordinarily popular even into the 1950s
evidences the changing racial culture that came with
jazz music. Segregation was an extremely prevalent
influence in the practices of the early jazz industry of
the deep South. As this music grew in popularity in
the Northern cities, however, and as jazz musicians
became truly respected as artists, the industry created
places where integrated audiences could hear this
“black music”. Over time, jazz music even became a
deliberate mechanism of social change in breaking
down segregational ideology and racial prejudice.
Because jazz moved to and mutated in the North, the
musicians were granted more opportunities and more
fame with white audiences than they ever could have
gained in the South, and the opportunities in the
73
Duke Ellington, Music Is My Mistress, A Da Capo
paperback (New York: Da Capo Press, 1976), 175.
74
Mark Tucker, “The Genesis of ‘Black, Brown and Beige’,”
Black Music Research Journal 13, no. 2 (October 1, 1993):
67–71.
133
North eventually made black jazz musicians respected
and influential nationwide.
Laurel Bettis is a sophomore at Santa Clara University and plans to major in History (European History
emphasis) and Theatre Arts (emphasis in theatre), with
minors in Women’s and Gender studies and possibly
music. She is not a member of Phi Alpha Theta but
hopes to be in the future, and plans to pursue a graduate degree in History after college with the eventual
goal of teaching at the university level. In addition to
academic interests in History, Literature, and Women’s
and Gender Studies, she actively participates in the
SCU Theatre department, Acappella Club, Choir, and
Orchestra. She is excited to round out her perspectives
on European History as a study abroad student in
Florence, Italy next fall.
134
June 2012
Virile, Yet Feminine: Sport, Gender, and
Representation in Fascist Italy
Andrea Dlugos
The image above is one of many that were widely
used to portray Benito Mussolini as the embodiment
of Latin athleticism. He symbolized the ‘new Italian’
that all men should aspire to emulate, and through his
use of incessant propaganda, created the myth of this
‘new man’ who was heir to the glorious ancient Roman
culture, spirit, and empire.1 The rhetoric surrounding
the ‘new man’ inextricably linked the strength of the
Italian nation and athletic prowess, which Mussolini
capitalized on more so than any other leader before
him. The power displayed through the promotion of
the Duce as the ultimate sportsman is apparent
through the writing of Fillippo Marinetti, poet and
founder of the Futurist movement, who says, “physically he is built in the Italian way, outlined by inspired
1
Gigliola Gori, Italian Fascism and the Female Body: Sport,
Submissive Women, and Strong Mothers (New York: Routledge,
2004), 15.
Virile, Yet Feminine
135
and brutal hands, forged and engraved according to
the model of the masterly rock of our peninsula.” He
then continues, “His imposing, square jaw and prominent disdainful lips…spit boldness and aggression
onto everything.”2 This type of admiration would not
have existed without Mussolini’s self-promotion of his
athletic ability and the characteristics of the myth of
the ‘new Italian’, since he was not pre-eminently a man
of sport or very handsome. However, many men, who
believed he embodied the model of “virile beauty” and
wanted to “imitate his physical appearance and lifestyle,” admired him.3
The image of Mussolini as the ultimate sportsman
contrasted that of the donna madre, who was the
embodiment of the ideal mother figure and was national, rural, and robust. She was responsible for the
‘fascistization’ of the family, as well as raising her
children to be good soldiers who would sacrifice their
lives for the rest of the nation.4 This woman is also
called the ‘new woman,’ who, in reality, represented a
shift back to traditional ideals about women. The types
of ideals that often characterized the ‘new women’ of
other countries were instead negatively reflected in the
donna crisi, the crisis woman, who was skinny, urbane, hysterical, decadent, and sterile.5 Her caricature
was designed to symbolize the dangerous effects of
2
Ibid., 25.
Ibid., 23.
4
Efharis Mascha, “Contradiction and the Role of the
‘Floating Signifier’: Identity and the ‘New Woman’ in Italian
Cartoons during Fascism,” Journal of International Women’s
Studies 11 (2004), 132.
5
Victoria De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1992), 73.
3
136
June 2012
modernization and the sense of independence it
instilled in Italy’s female population.
“Strapaese’s nemesis: the crisis woman, 1931,”
in How Fascism Ruled Women, Victoria
DeGrazia (Berkeley, University of California
Press: 1992), 216.
There is a third image, however, which fits into
neither of these categories: the image of the female
athlete. These images portray women as youthful,
beautiful, graceful, and strong. While they were not the
female equivalent to depictions of Mussolini, they were
considered “virile, yet feminine.”6 This portrayal of
femininity and women’s involvement in athletics is an
aspect of Fascism that allows for an examination of
gender roles in Mussolini’s Italy. The debates that
surround women’s participation in sport shows that
defining these roles was a fluid process that changed
not only during the Fascist era, but continues to
resonate in Italy and the rest of the world today.
The position of women in Fascist Italy was one of
great significance, one that has become the subject of
6
Sarah Morgan, “Mussolini’s Boys (and Girls): Gender and
Sport in Fascist Italy,” History Australia 3 (2006), 4.3.
137
much historical scholarship over the past two decades.
Earlier work on Fascism rarely dealt with the social
and gendered dimensions of the regime and simply
sought to understand the political implications of the
ideology. These older books do provide a great overview
of Italian Fascism as a whole, Edward Tannenbaum’s
The Fascist Experience being most valuable.7 Another
area that strongly influenced Fascist ideology and is
crucial to gaining a thorough understanding of it is
aesthetics. Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi’s Fascist
Spectacle and George Mosse’s article “Fascist Aesthetics and Society: Some Considerations,” deal with the
aesthetics of power in Mussolini’s Italy and argue that
the search for symbols and forms to represent Fascism’s political novelty actually created its own power.8
7
Edward Tannenbaum, The Fascist Experience (New York:
Basic Books Inc, 1972); for more general information about
Italian Fascism, see: David Forgacs, ed., Rethinking Italian
Fascism: Capitalism, Populism, and Culture (London: Lawrence
and Whishart, 1986); Phillip Morgan, Italian Fascism, 1919-1945
(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995); Paul Corner, “Italian Fascism:
Organization, Enthusiasm, Opinion,” Journal of Modern Italian
Studies 15 (2010): 378-89; Richard Jensen, “Futurism and
Fascism,” History Today 45 (1995)
http://www.historytoday.com/137ichard-jensen/futurism-and-fascism, Walter
Adamson, “Avant-Garde Modernism and Italian Fascism:
Cultural Politics in the Era of Mussolini,” Journal of Modern
Italian Studies 6 (2010): 230-48.
8
Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: The
Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2001); George Mosse, “Fascist Aesthetics and
Society: Some Considerations,” Journal of Contemporary History
2 (1996): 245-52; George Mosse, The Image of Man (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1996); for more about Fascist aesthetics
and ideas of masculinity, see: Maschai, “Contradiction and the
Role of the ‘Floating Signifier’: Identity and the Role of the ‘New
138
June 2012
George Mosse also wrote The Image of Man, which
deconstructs the idea of Western masculinity and how
it came to represent, among other things, physical
beauty (exemplified through sport), courage, moral
restraint, and a strong will. Understanding the aesthetic construction of this masculinity, which gained
an even greater emphasis under Fascism, is necessary
to fully analyze the evolution of Fascist femininity. The
power behind aesthetics plays a crucial role in understanding the policies dealing with gender roles and the
role of women in Italian society.
The most comprehensive work investigating Fascism’s control over gender roles is Victoria De Grazia’s
How Fascism Ruled Women, which discusses how the
Fascist regime defined the place of women and how
they experienced Mussolini’s rule. The underlying
theme of this work is the conflict between ideas of
modernity and traditional patriarchal authority in
regard to women’s role in society. The experience of
women under Fascism is, according to De Grazia,
marked by ambiguity and ambivalence.9 This premise
Woman’ in Italian Cartoons During Fascism,” 128-42; Michael
Kimmel, "The Contemporary 'Crisis' of Masculinity in Historical
Perspective," in The Making of Masculinities: The New Men's
Studies, ed. Harry Brod (Routledge: Boston, 1987); Barbara
Spackman, Fascist Virilities: Rhetoric, Ideology ,and Social
Fantasy in Italy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1996; Robert Paxon, The Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Knopf,
2004); Sandro Ballassi, “The Masculine Mystique:
Antimodernism and Virility in Fascist Italy,” Journal of Modern
Italian Studies 10 (2005): 314-35.
9
De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women; Robin PickeringIazzi, Mothers of Invention: Women, Fascism, and Culture
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995); for more
about women and Fascism, see: Kevin Passamore, Women,
139
resurfaces in nearly every work examining women and
ideals of femininity in Fascist Italy. Another book
contributing to the dialogue of Italian Fascism and
gender is Robin Pickering-Iazzi’s compilation of essays
in Mothers of Invention: Women, Italian Fascism, and
Culture. As the title suggests, this work specifically
deals with the regime’s enforcement of the idea of
women as mothers and how this image was both
reinforced and challenged throughout the Fascist era.
Pickering-Iazzi seeks to provide a different approach to
the debate about Fascism and culture through the
essays included, which offer a contrasting view to the
black and white categorization of women as either the
donna madre or donna crisi. This approach follows the
same tenet of ambiguity that De Grazia highlights in
both Fascist ideals about women and their experience
of the regime. However, the topic of women’s involvement in sports is only briefly touched upon in either of
these works.
Gigliola Gori addresses this issue much more
thoroughly in Italian Fascism and the Female Body:
Sport, Submissive Women, and Strong Mothers.
Through examining the cultural context of the preFascist period as well as during the Fascist era, she
argues that women’s participation in sports during the
Fascist period supported a certain level of gender
emancipation that is often overlooked in light of the
regime’s overwhelming suppression of women’s equalGender, and Fascism in Europe, 1919-1945 (New Brunswick:
Manchester University Press, 2003); Victoria De Grazia, The Sex
of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); Alexander
DeGrand, “Women Under Italian Fascism,” Historical Journal 19
(1976): 947-68.
140
June 2012
ity. Two articles further examine the effect of women’s
participation in sports: Sarah Morgan’s “Mussolini’s
Boys (and Girls),” and “A Glittering Icon of Fascist
Femininity: Trebisonda ‘Ondina’ Valla,” also written by
Gigliola Gori. Both of these articles discuss the success of the women who were a part of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. This event was especially paramount for the Fascist regime because of its function as
a political sphere to demonstrate their strength to the
rest of the world. Through examining Italian press
coverage of the 1936 Olympics, Morgan and Gori argue
that the publicly broadcasted success of the Italian
women made a huge contribution to the construction
of gender roles under the Fascist regime.10 Investigating the influence of sport on gender roles in Fascist
Italy has been a recent trend; this paper will further
examine the extent of this phenomenon to show that
although there were some liberating effects, participating in athletics was for the most part an extension of
Fascist ideals of submissive women; athletes such as
Valla served only as a symbol of a narrow and exclusive shift in gender roles that would not be a reality for
most Italian women for decades.
10
Gori, Italian Fascism and the Female Body; Morgan,
“Mussolini’s Boys (and Girls); Gigliola Gori, “A Glittering Icon of
Fascist Femininity: Trebisonda ‘Ondina’ Valla,” International
Journal of the History of Sport 18 (2001), 173-95; for more about
Fascism and sport, see: Patrizia Dogliani, “Sport and Fascism,”
Journal of Modern Italian Studies 5 (2001): 326-43; Simon
Martin, “ Italian Sport and the Challenges of Its Recent
Historiography,” Journal of Sport History 38 (2011): 199-209;
Jim Riordan and Arnd Kruger, The International Politics of Sport
in the 20th Century (London: E&FN Spon, 1999); Jennifer
Hargreaves and Patricia Vertinsky, Physical Culture, Power, and
the Body (London: Routledge, 2007).
141
In order to fully appreciate the role that women’s
involvement in sports had on shaping gender roles, an
examination of the philosophies that contributed to
Fascist ideology is necessary. As both the leader and
founder of the Fascist movement, Mussolini integrated
numerous aspects from the dominant ideologies
present in Italy at the time into la dottrina del fascismo, specifically Futurism and Aesthetics. When
combined with other doctrines coursing through the
European psyche at the time, such as nationalism and
imperialism, visual culture became inextricably linked
to the ideological makeup of Fascism. Fascist ideology
has its roots in the Futurist movement, which promoted “values such as exaltation of speed and action,
championing of violence and conflict, emphasizing
youth, rebelling against the past and disgust with
Italian cultural stagnation, championing of the industrial age, and the espousal of fervent Italian nationalism and imperialism.”11 Once Fascism turned to the
right in 1920, the support of Marinetti and the Futurists for Fascism dwindled, and a final break between
the two that same year led to Futurism becoming a
literary and artistic movement while Fascism embraced totalitarian politics. However, many Futurist
themes had by this time become ingrained in Fascist
ideology, including the cult of anti-intellectualism,
antagonism, virility, youth, speed and sport, and an
innovative use of language in political propaganda.12
Futurism had been gathering force among the petty
11
Richard Jensen, “Futurism and Fascism,” History Today
45 (1995) http://www.historytoday.com/richardjensen/futurism-and-fascism.
12
Gori, Italian Fascism and the Female Body, 12.
142
June 2012
bourgeoisie since its creation in 1909, but it was not
until the end of World War I and Italy’s sense of
frustration and disappointment with its aftermath that
these ideas gained political momentum when they
were paired with the newly created Fascist Party. The
consciousness of the Italian intelligentsia at the time
was focused on the notion that Italy was unable to
compete with the European superpowers because it
was stuck in the past; that “modernity remained just
out of reach, forever beyond Italy’s borders, and
Italians could only ‘look on and sigh with jealousy,
from outside, with badly concealed rancor, like the
poorest children who press their little red noses
against holiday windows.”13 In order to break this cycle
and regain the former glory of the Roman Empire that
many Italians, especially Mussolini, dreamed of,
dramatic change had to be made.14 War, they concluded, was the mechanism through which this
transformation would be accomplished, preferably
through the establishment of aggressive colonial
policies. War was seen as a necessary condition for the
spiritual rebirth of the Italian people, and the rhetoric
surrounding the new Italian nationalism centered on
this Futurist idea of revolutionary modernization and
completely breaking with the past and tradition.15 In
order to achieve this goal, the Italian people would
13
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, “Modernity is Just Over There:
Colonialism and Italian National Identity,” Interventions 8
(2006), 381.
14
This focus on ancient Rome is directly contradictory to
Futurist ideology, which emphasized a strict break with the
past. Furthermore, it shows some of the inherent ambiguity that
Fascism was built on.
15
Jensen, “Futurism and Fascism.”
143
have to be transformed as well.
The emphasis placed on creating a new kind of
Italian, more specifically the “new man” but also the
“new woman,” puts aesthetics at the core of understanding Fascist ideology and policies. Aesthetics is a
philosophy normally attributed to art and understanding beauty, but its application to the visual culture
created by Fascism highlights important features
about its principles. Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi,
author of Fascist Spectacle, writes that “at the heart of
totalitarian politics lies the idea of creation” while
showing how Mussolini fulfilled the model of the “Godlike artist-creator” through his desire to shape the
masses into his idea of the ideal Italian man and
woman.16 She further argues that this goal of creating
a “new society on fresh ground and free of limits from
laws, tradition, or ethical values” was contingent upon
depersonalization and de-individualization; people
were simply something that could be shaped without
protest as if there was no sensory involvement.17
Mussolini was therefore not only the political leader of
the Fascist regime, but was the physical embodiment
of the ideology “isolated like a god on Mount Olympus,”
responsible for transforming Italians into “a new
aesthetic model incarnated by Mussolini.”18 This
creation of a new people was not restricted to the
borders of Italy; it also was directed towards colonial
policy, where “the colonies would further projects of
bonifica umana (human reclamation) by producing a
‘new type of human being,’ disciplined and full of
144
17
18
Simonetta Falasca-Zamponini, Fascist Spectacle, 13.
Ibid.
Gori, Italian Fascism and the Female Body, 17-18.
June 2012
national feeling.”19 Colonial policy was aggressive, and
this “human reclamation” was to be a laboratory for
testing strategies of repression and governance.
George Mosse highlights an additional element to
the understanding of Fascist aesthetics in stating, “the
aesthetic of Fascism should be put into the framework
of Fascism as a civic religion, as a non-traditional faith
which used liturgy and symbols to make its belief
come alive.”20 The ultimate symbol and idol of this new
religion was Mussolini himself, whose image became
one that symbolized everything the new Italian man
should aspire to, as he “encompassed the values that
were already being exploited by the Futurists.”21 This
“cult of the Duce” evolved into a cult of physical
beauty, which not only associated the “good with the
true and the holy,”22 but also with the modernity,
progress, and strength of the Italian nation. The
exaltation of this new Italian race and the images
illustrating it were integral in developing the new sense
of nationalism that venerated war and the creation of
a new Italian empire. As these desires grew and the
main purpose of the nation became defined by an
armed and aggressive model, the aesthetics of Fascism
took on a more militarized image, which amplified the
role of sporting events and physical training.23
The centrality of sport and the body to Fascist
ideology and politics is thus apparent, as the image of
the Latin athlete epitomizes the ideals Fascism endorsed. Because the regime wished to uphold the
19
16
20
21
22
23
Ben-Ghiat, “Modernity is Just Over There,” 382.
George Mosse, “Fascist Aesthetics and Society,” 245.
Mosse,” Fascist Aesthetics and Society,” 246.
145
image of Italy as the “sporting nation par excellence,”
it was necessary for sport to have a high level of
visibility.24 Fascist Italy was the first European state to
use sport for the purpose of political propaganda.25
Participation in sports therefore became the tool
through which Italians would be physically transformed into the image desired by Mussolini. Physical
training was not only a means of staying healthy, but
of projecting an image of “virility” that became a
defining characteristic of the new Italian. Images
produced by the regime focused on the beauty of
sturdy Fascist men, “eternally young and powerful,” as
compared to the ugliness of non-Fascist men.26
“Shot-putters shown ready to throw, in a field in
Sesto Fiorentino. In the background, among the
crowd, a few black-shirts” Fratelli Alinari Museum
Collections-Malandrini Collection, Florence, from
Alinari Archives,
http://www.alinariarchives.it/interal/Defaulty.aspx
This focus on virility and the desire to transform Italy
into a sporting nation propelled the development of
146
25
26
Ibid., 147.
Morgan, “Mussolini’s Boys (And Girls), 4.2.
Ibid., 18.
June 2012
sporting facilities and the increased involvement of
students in physical education at school. In 1928 there
were only 502 facilities and 180,000 students participating in physical education, but by 1935 these
numbers had grown to 5,198 and 470,000 respectively.27 This revival of sports enthusiasm and the
depiction of virility and strength as the most defining
characteristics of the “new man” stemmed from the
overall crisis of masculinity that plagued Europe after
World War I. The perceived threat of weakness was a
result of the mass amount of casualties combined with
the beginning of converging gender roles and changing
social and economic structures created a “deep unease
about the nature of masculine identity.”28 Sport and
physical prowess became a tool to reaffirm men’s place
in society as the heroes and protectors of the nation,
as well as displaying the superiority of the Italian
“race” over other nationalities.
The crisis of masculinity resulted in the creation of
the new Italian woman. While the model for masculine
ideals paralleled the Futurist desire for a clear break
with the past, the model of the ideal Fascist woman
was much more ambiguous. The prevailing model of
the donna madre sought to combine ideas of modernity
with those of tradition, religion, and stability, and was
inherently problematic and contradictory.29 A trend
toward female emancipation had been developing since
the beginning of the twentieth century, and as was
typical of all countries mobilized for war, Italian
27
24
Ibid., 21.
Kimmel, "The Contemporary 'Crisis' of Masculinity in
Historical Perspective," 342.
29
28
147
women had gained many new freedoms during World
War I. The innovative rhetoric of Mussolini during the
early years of Fascism seemed to promote this trend,
even suggesting women’s suffrage, but once the regime
was on solid ground, “the question of female emancipation was set aside in favor of manly hegemony based
on traditional paternalism.”30 In order to harmonize
this return to traditional values with Fascist modernism, domestic duties were painted as a way to take
part in building the new Fascist state by bearing as
many children as possible. In a speech given in 1932,
Mussolini stated, “woman must obey.…My idea of her
role in the state is in opposition to all feminism.
Naturally she shouldn’t be a slave, but if I conceded
her the vote, I’d be laughed at. In our state, she must
not count.”31 Increasing the birthrate became a primary focus for the regime, which set the tone for
policies regarding women; restrictions were placed on
female employment, families with six or more children
were given financial assistance, and abortion was
outlawed as a “crime against the human race.”32 The
Fascist regime had established the Opera Nazionale
per la Maternita ed Infanzia (National Agency for
Maternity and Infancy--ONMI) in 1925, which became
an increasingly important institution in dictating
policies aimed at promoting motherhood and aiding
mothers in raising healthy children whose morality fit
that of the Fascist regime’s.33 The propaganda produced by ONMI, including the image below, created a
30
31
32
33
Ibid.
De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women, 234.
De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women, 62.
148
June 2012
“myth of maternity” about Italian women, yet in reality
these efforts were largely ineffective. The birthrate fell
from 29.9 per one thousand people in 1921-25 to 24
per one thousand people in 1931-35.34
“Poster for the National ONMI,”
in How Fascism Ruled Women:
Italy, 1922-1945, Victoria De
Grazia (Berkeley, University of
California Press, 1992), 74.
Despite the regime’s largely oppressive policies
directed towards women, sport also played a central
role in creating the image of the ‘new woman,’ raising
numerous issues regarding contradictory gender roles.
Women’s participation in sport had been present in
Italian society since the late 1800’s, but became the
subject of criticism from both the Catholic Church and
the Fascist regime in the second half of the 1920’s;
sportswomen were, for the most part, considered
34
Ibid., 63.
149
eccentrics.35 Much of this criticism stemmed from the
fear of a “masculinization of Italian women, a loss of
feminine modesty, and a decline in women’s interest in
family and maternity.”36 It was also rumored that sport
could make women infertile, and that the athleticism
of women was “responsible for the decline in the
population and excessive emancipation,”37 but since
the regime had encouraged women’s participation in
sport in its early years, it was unable to officially
oppose it. Another problematic area in women’s
participation in athletics was the militaristic aspect of
sport; the two had been “inextricably linked in Fascist
Italy long before the Second World War.”38 As Italy’s
colonial policy became more and more aggressive and
tensions throughout Europe grew, the athlete became
synonymous with the soldier.39 Sport was therefore a
masculine domain, which further heightened fears of
women becoming too masculine if they participated in
sport.
The solution to this dilemma came when the regime
gave scientists the task of deciding which activities
were appropriate for women to participate in. The
Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano (Italian Olympic
Committee) and the Federazione Italiana Medici dello
Sport (Italian Federation of Sports Physicians) were
therefore responsible for redesigning women’s sport
based on a eugenic model.40 Activities such as swimming, skiing, skating, tennis, basketball, and certain
35
36
37
38
39
40
Ibid., 147.
Ibid., 75.
Ibid., 157.
Morgan, “Mussolini’s Boys (and Girls),” 4.4.
Ibid.
150
June 2012
athletics were deemed suitable for women’s health and
beneficial for preparing them to be mothers of strong,
healthy Italians. More competitive and aggressive
activities were unsuitable for women because they
were seen as weaker than men and unable to handle
the stress of more vigorous sports.41 As for the militaristic aspects that posed opposition, the Fascist regime
began to change its stance as it saw the necessity in
preparing the whole country for war. Justification
again was rooted in rhetoric of creating good mothers
capable of bearing strong, brave children who would
defend the nation. Being confident in shooting was
even seen as beneficial, since “children of a fainthearted mother were sure to be cowards.”42
Despite the paternalistic approach and regulations
that surrounded women’s participation in sports, a
noticeable shift in the portrayal of the ideal “new
woman” can be seen in images produced by the Fascist
regime. The more rural, traditional motherly figure was
replaced by one strongly influenced by America:
“sporty, tomboyish, nimble, and slender.”43 This
transformation still had to accommodate traditional
values, for if it strayed too far into the American model,
it would share too many similarities to the donna crisi,
the ultimate threat to maternity and Fascist ideals of
femininity. For example, the regime had a “campaign
against slim women,” which promoted the idea that
slimness was unhealthy. This stemmed from the need
to “fight against the crisis woman,” who was excessively slim and seen not only as unhealthy from
41
42
43
Ibid., 77.
151
“cutting down on meals or swallowing pernicious pills,”
but also unattractive.44 The image of the donna sportiva, therefore, is a compromise between the two:
plumper than the fashionable American film stars of
the 1930’s such as Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn,
Myrna Loy, and Bette Davis, yet still strong and
healthy.45 The image below is one that highlights this
compromise and was popularly circulated, as it was
the winner of the Cremona Prize, which was awarded
to “practitioners of militant art…aimed at a broad
popular audience and totally at the service of Fascist
ideology.”46 The Cremona Prize encouraged the production of many paintings depicting sporting themes,
which often included “shapely female athletes” who
were brunette and had “obviously muscular legs,
robust arms, strong shoulders and rounded breasts.”47
In addition, fashion was an important aspect of this
shift in the representation of Italian femininity. Pictures from the Accademia Nazionale Femminile di
Educazione Fisica in Orvieto show how there was a
change in dress; women were moving farther away
from the rural depiction of the donna madre of the
1920’s and more towards that of the donna sportiva,
which allowed athletic movement but was still
modest.48 The donna sportiva also became a figure of
Italian beauty through her depiction as a swimmer, as
this image was one that was particularly malleable,
and could be constructed as “graceful and strong,
44
45
46
47
48
Ibid., 171.
Ibid., 179.
Ibid., 178.
Ibid.
152
June 2012
Bruno Amadio, “Artemide
Mussoliniana,” in Italian
Fascism and the Female Body:
Sport, Submissive Women, and
Strong Mothers. New York:
Routledge, 2004.
feminine and disciplined.”49 It wasn’t an image of
athletic success, but one of modernity, health, and
glamour.50 She avoided makeup and trendy, seductive
clothing, and aimed to be “slender, sober, and
strong.”51 The term “virile, yet feminine” also came to
define how the donna sportiva was depicted by the
Italian press. Although there was still considerable
debate over what sporting activities were appropriate
for women, female athleticism was accepted as necessary for the regime to promote an image of an Italy
49
Ibid., 4.6-4.7.
51
David Chapman, review of Italian Fascism and the Female
Body: Sport, Submissive Women, and Strong Mothers, by Gigliola
Gori, Journal of Sport History, Summer 2005.
50
153
that was modern and competitive in relation to other
nations.52
The ultimate arena for displaying this newfound
Italian strength to the rest of the world was through
the Olympic Games, which were viewed by Mussolini
as a crucial demonstration of the success and power of
his Fascist state and ideology. Fascist Italy needed
wider international visibility in order to “exploit the
results of its efforts to forge the ‘new Italian.”53 Italy
had been very successful in 1932 in Los Angeles,
finishing second in total medals behind the United
States. This success was only that of the Italian men;
Italian women had not been allowed to participate, as
Pope Pius XI strongly opposed women’s participation
in sport.54 The 1936 games in Berlin, however, were a
different story. Not only was Italy competing under a
“flag of war, fresh from their imperial victory in Ethiopia, and eager to engage in another battle,”55 but also,
for the first time, Italian women were allowed to enter
the field of Olympic competition.56 Both Mussolini and
the Italian public had viewed women participating in
competitive sports in a largely negative light, but with
the recent increase in international female participation in the Olympics, Mussolini saw the necessity of
52
53
54
Gigliola Gori, “A Glittering Icon of Fascist Femininity,”
154
June 2012
including Italian female athletes. If Italy was going to
be viewed as a modern country by the rest of the
world, Italy’s athletic prowess would have to be displayed by both men and women. In the end, it was the
women, not the men, of the 1936 Olympics who had
the most success. In the 80-meter hurdles, Trebisonda
‘Ondina’ Valla became the first Italian woman to win a
gold medal (the only gold medal the Italians won in
Berlin), while her teammate Claudia Testoni finished
in third.57 These performances were decisive in Italy’s
overall third place finish, and also were “a relief for the
Italian press after disappointing results from the
men.”58
The positive response of the press to Valla and
Testoni’s success is evident in numerous articles
published in Italian newspapers. The main headline of
La Gazetta dello Sport stated, “The tricolour of Italy on
the highest flagpole of the stadium with the victory of
Ondina Valla in the 80m hurdles,” while other articles
on the first and second pages in the issue contained
stories of Valla, speaking positively of her “superb
technique” and “powerful action,” and naming Testoni
as a “worthy opponent.”59 Lo Sport Fascistas Olympic
edition gave even higher praise to women athletes by
listing their results before the men’s, and describing
Valla and Testoni as “daughters of the strong
Romagna--the Duce’s birthplace--and they show in
their physiques, powerful in muscles and harmonious
177.
55
Ibid., 4.4.
The first Italian woman to technically participate in the
Olympic Games was Rosetta Gagliardi, a tennis player, in 1920,
but she did not actually qualify to play; instead, she was one of
the bearers of the Italian flag. Therefore, 1936 marks the
beginning of Italian women’s actual competition in the games
(Gori, Italian Fascism and the Female Body, 149).
56
57
This third place finish was originally disputed and Testoni
was awarded fourth, but after further review she received third.
58
59
Luigi Ferrario, “Giornata di Passione allo Stadio Olimpico,”
La Gazzetta dello Sport, 7 August 1936, 2.
155
in form, the signs of an unmistakable Italianness.”60
Articles published in La Stampa call Valla and Testoni
“the stars of the big event [the Olympics],”61 include
Valla in an article about Italy’s strongest athletes,62
and invite the public to express their gratitude in
person to Valla, the “greatest attraction” of a meet-and
greet event organized by the Athletics Federation at
Mussolini Stadium in September 1936.63 Images taken
of Valla, such as the one below, also show how the
public received her warmly and enthusiastically, and
how she (and Testoni) became “instant celebrities and
national heroes.”64
Archiv Freidrich, “The Italian athlete Trebisonda
Valla known as Ondina, Olympic Champion of the
80m hurdles at the Berlin Olympics in 1936,” From
Alinari Archives,
http://www.alinariarchives.it/interal/Default.aspx
60
Bruno Zali, “Bilanico dellXI Olimpiade. Il Passo avanti
dellatletismo italiano,” Lo Sport Fascista, September 1936, 4.
61
“Ondina Valla and Claudia Testoni: Protagonists of the
Grand Reunion,” La Stampa, 25 September 1936, 5.
62
“Ondina Valla and the Strongest Italian Athletes,” La
Stampa, 27 September 1936, 4.
63
“Ondina Valla and Claudia Testoni: Protagonists of the
Grand Reunion,” La Stampa, 5.
64
156
June 2012
Mussolini himself also responded very enthusiastically to the success of the Italian women in Berlin. He
congratulated Valla in Rome with the other members
of the Italian team, and he awarded her a gold medal
for athletic valor. In an interview with her about her
gold medal experience, she said, “Everyone was trying
to approach Mussolini, but the Duce said, ‘I want Miss
Valla near me!’”65 This marks a definitive shift in how
Mussolini viewed female athletics; instead of just
participating in pre-approved activities that would
make women better mothers, a select number of
sportswomen could contribute to “spreading the
image of Fascist sportspeople all over the world.”66
From 1936 on, Fascist propaganda clearly supported
the enrollment of girls and young women in youth
sporting organizations, whereas before it had taken a
more cautious approach to the matter.67 The view of
the Vatican also shifted after the 1936 Olympics;
Valla had a special audience with Pope Pius XI, who
congratulated her and said, according to Valla’s
interview, “Well done, our compliments!”68 It has been
argued that because of this shift in opinion by Mussolini and the Pope, a “breach had been opened in the
masculinist wall erected against women’s emancipation by the highest authorities in Italy.”69 While the
Olympic success of Valla and Testoni did result in a
more accepting view of female athleticism by the
press, the Fascist party, and the country’s two most
important leaders, these women were mainly symbols
65
66
67
68
69
Ibid., 185.
Ibid., 186.
Ibid., 190.
Ibid., 186.
157
of greater freedom that did not really exist in Fascist
Italy. In fact, the new emphasis on women’s participation in sports still contained ideals and rhetoric that
maintained the pre-existing gender roles promoted by
Fascism.
The selective process by which women were
chosen to participate in competitive sports at a higher
level is one of the main reasons women’s sports were
not as liberating as has been assumed. This was the
case for Valla and Testoni, who were selected at a very
young age to be trained for competition. Those girls
who did not demonstrate the potential for impressive
athletic ability were required to follow the declarations
of the Italian Olympic Committee and the Italian
Federation of Sports Physicians, and were thereby
limited to undemanding activities that would “preserve female grace and modesty.”70 For the few who
did compete at a national or international level,
second-class treatment (in relation to that of male
athletes) was typical; Valla recalls having to endure
“horrible trips by train…sitting in a cheap, uncomfortable, second-class carriage…and poor accommodation
and meal subsidies.”71 Italian male athletes, on the
other hand, received first class travel tickets, accommodation, and subsistence. Furthermore, female
athletes were not given their own official uniforms or
good quality shoes for competition; moreover, these
uniforms and shoes had to be returned once an event
was over.72 These disparities reflect the dominant
patriarchal views held by the majority of Italian
158
71
72
Gori, “A Glittering Icon of Fascist Femininity,” 178.
Ibid., 176.
Ibid.
June 2012
society, which not only viewed sport as the “preeminent expression of the strength and virility of the
Italian male,”73but also saw the competitiveness and
muscularity of some sportswomen as dangerous to
traditional masculine hegemony.74
Preserving the dominance of Italian masculinity
was at the center of much of Fascist policy, as can be
seen through the policies of Italian Olympic Committee and the Italian Federation of Sports Physicians.
These organizations put men in charge of determining
the appropriate leisure activities and physical education that women could participate in, further defining
femininity according to patriarchal values. The
message was that they were “allowing” women to
partake in athletics. Although women’s involvement
in physical activity did increase under Fascism, it was
much smaller and more marginalized than official
statistics, publications, and propaganda declared.
Compared to other countries, Italian sportswomen’s
achievements were actually inferior.75 It is also important to note that all of the media was under the
control of the Fascist regime, therefore the positive
reception and recognition of women’s athletic success
has to be viewed more as a political tool and less as
accurate portrayal of public opinion or response. The
participation of not just women, but men also, was
mandated by the regime; authorities noticed those
who failed to partake in what was seen as necessary
for building the Italian people and nation.76 The
73
70
74
75
76
Ibid.
Ibid., 185.
Ibid., 166.
159
purpose of this mandatory participation was to create
a false image of a nation that had “voluntarily become
a sporting people.”77 Many articles emphasize that the
sports victories were “admirable Fascist results” and
were the product of “extraordinary courage and love
for the Fatherland.”78 Athletics were, therefore,
another way for the regime to exert control over the
Italian people while promoting an image both domestically and internationally that was much more myth
than reality.
Although female athleticism did not have an
overall liberating effect on women, the emphasis
placed on visual culture and the political motivations
of depicting Italy as a sporting nation, women’s
participation in sport and the debates surrounding it
provide an excellent window into the examination of
gender roles in Fascist Italy. Moreover, it demonstrates how this process was fluid and full of ambiguities. The marked shift in opinion after the success of
the women’s team in the 1936 Olympics shows that
elite female athletes were thought of as national
celebrities, yet the majority of women were still
subject to the belief that motherhood was the ultimate
goal of all women, and that it was the responsibility of
all mothers to train their families to serve Fascism
and the nation. Even Valla was used to promote this
model; when she became a mother in 1940, the news
was used as evidence that “sporting competition and
maternity were not incompatible.”79 While this may
have had the effect of decreasing the rigidity of the
77
78
79
Ibid.
Ibid.
160
June 2012
rules governing women’s participation in sports, it
still emphasizes the fact that women were ultimately
viewed as mothers. Although gender roles did shift
remotely throughout the Fascist era, protecting
motherhood remained at the center of these changes.
This enduring patriarchy ensured that women’s
involvement in sport did not dramatically challenge
the existing gender roles so central to Fascist ideology.
This lasting role of patriarchal ideals is one that
would remain engrained in Italian culture long after
Mussolini lost his charismatic sway over the populace
and Fascism became an unsavory part of the past.
Even though the totalitarian control over Italians’
lives ended with the victory of the Allies in World War
II, patriarchy remained a dominant force in the
construction of a post war Italian identity. As in the
United States and other western European countries,
the reintroduction of Italian men into the workforce
emphasized the traditional model of women staying
home and raising children and letting men handle the
working world. However, a major victory for women in
the years following the fall of Fascism was getting the
right to vote in 1946, in Italy’s new Constitutional
Republic, and then two years later participating in
voting to formally ratify the new constitution.80 This
new constitution included articles aimed at promoting
gender equality, for example, Article 3, which declared, “all citizens possess an equal social status and
are equal before the law, without discrimination to
sex,” Article 37, which states, “working women shall
be entitled to equal rights and, for comparable jobs,
80
161
equal pay with men,” and Article 51, which says, “all
citizens of either sex shall be eligible for public office
and for elective positions on conditions of equality.”81
However, these provisions were not fully applied in
practice, both in the professional world and the
sporting world. In theory, competitive sports were
open to all women, but recruitment was obstructed by
the same prejudices that marked the Fascist era. The
few women who did compete in international competition through the 1950’s were those who belonged to
the elite group trained under the Fascist regime.82 The
international feminist movement of the 1970’s finally
sparked the true process of female emancipation in
sport and other areas of life in Italy, which has been
slow and continues to be held back by the patriarchal
roots of Italian society; Italy still has one of the lowest
female labor participation rates of any developed
country, and ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s
sexist and often derogatory statements and policies
have significantly altered the course of women’s rights
in Italy.
The sluggish process of female liberation was often
encumbered by Italian women themselves; their self
awareness was “strongly affected by traditions that
considered women to be inferior creatures capable of
only being sexually promiscuous ‘demons’ or docile
domesticated ‘angels’.”83 This can be partially attributed to the influence that the Catholic Church had
both on official government policies as well as public
opinion in Italy. Although the Christian Democratic
81
82
83
Ibid., 205.
Ibid., 206.
Ibid., 205.
162
June 2012
party, which used to represent the Vatican’s interests
in politics, collapsed in 1994, the latter part of the
2000’s saw the return of the direct influence of the
Church in Italian politics.84 This prevailing influence
of a patriarchal mindset explains why women’s
participation in sport produced little liberating effect
among the general female populace both under
Fascism and in the years following. Although some
women such as Trebisonda Valla gained immense
national prestige through their athletic abilities, this
small elite would remain a political icon; a symbol of
“congratulation but also confrontation, contradiction
and paradox.”85 These contradictions were not only an
aspect of the symbolism of the female athlete, but also
an inherent part of the construction of Italian gender
roles as a whole.
Andrea Dlugos is a senior at Santa Clara University
pursuing a double major in History and Economics,
and is a member of Phi Alpha Theta. This essay is a
condensed version of her senior thesis, which she
presented at the Northern California Phi Alpha Theta
Conference, and was also awarded the Mehl Prize, an
award given annually to the best senior thesis in the
History Department. She has been interested in Italian
history since studying abroad in Rome the fall of her
junior year.
84
“By Hook or by Crook: A Resurgent Vatican’s Influence in
Italy,” The Economist, 31 May 2007,
http://www.economist.com/node/9259081.
85
Japan Disarmed
163
Japan Disarmed: The Symbolism and
Rejection of the Defeated Soldier in
Japanese Social Media
Ian Ghows
On August 28 1945, the Empire of Japan formally
surrendered to the Allied nations. The signing marked
the end of an era and the death knell of the militaristic
Empire. It also left millions of Japanese servicemen
and colonists stranded abroad. With Japan’s economy
crippled and its navy shattered, it was up to the Allies
to repatriate the colonists and surrendered Japanese
servicemen. Many of these servicemen would not see
their homeland for years; others, especially those in
Soviet captivity, would never return. Much has been
written about American soldiers’ homecoming and the
widespread euphoria in the United Kingdom following
the end of World War II, but less has been written on
the perspective of the vanquished. This may be due to
the age-old adage that “History is written by the victors.” Clichés aside, the topic of the Japanese homecoming is a singular one that deserves as much
attention as the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Where Pearl Harbor shocked the American public, the
official surrender did the same and much more to the
Japanese populace. To hear the emperor, a man
whom many believed to be descended from a goddess,
outline his intention to surrender, and then to have
the Japanese islands occupied, provoked a deep soulsearching within the Japanese. The focus of this soulsearching was directed at the politicians and, especially, the military who had led them to believe they
164
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were winning the war. The cold, often hostile, reception of defeated Imperial Japanese servicemen, portrayed as invincible heroes by Japanese wartime
propaganda, and the attitudes of the Japanese people
as reflected in the social media of the time are indicative of a natural Japanese shift towards pacifism and
a rejection of militarism.
The pre-modern Japanese social structure had
placed the warrior class of society, the samurai, at the
top for hundreds of years. They were the bureaucratic
social elite, but were also romanticized in classical
tales and songs extolling valor and virtues. After the
Meiji Restoration in 1868, the samurai class was
abolished and replaced with a new Western-style
military elite in 1872.1 The birth of the Empire of
Japan also signaled the birth of Asia’s first modern
military, whose objective was to protect Japan from
any would-be imperial colonizer.
As a means of avoiding predation, Japan linked its
modernization with joining the ranks of the imperialists following the military defeat of China in 1895 and
of Russia in 1905.2 Propaganda and militarism in
Japan increased with each success. Decades later,
Japan’s encroachment in Asia increased with postWorld War I colonies and the expansion into Manchuria in 1931. On the heels of these military successes,
the Japanese war machine seemed invincible. When
Japan entered into military conflict with China in 1937
and the Allies in 1941, more successes followed as
1
James L. Huffman, Modern Japan: An Encyclopedia of
History, Culture and Nationalism (New York: Garland
Publishing, 1998), 215, 241-42.
2
Ibid..
Japan Disarmed
165
they conquered the Philippines, Malaya and Britain’s
“Fortress” Singapore in 1942.3 As Japan went from
victory to victory, the propaganda machine at home
continued to pump up the virtues of a strong military.
When the war began to turn against Japan, Allied
bombers began their terrible fire-bombing raids and
Japanese defeats were reported by newspapers as
victories. Then, the United States dropped two atomic
bombs and instantly killed hundreds of thousands of
Japanese soldiers and civilians in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thus, when on 15 August 1945,
Emperor Hirohito informed his people that he intended
to surrender to prevent further loss of life, the lies
about inevitable military victory were exposed and the
trust between people and government shattered.
Returning Japanese servicemen became a hated
symbol of the war and suffering to the Japanese
public, unnecessary in the postwar era, and this is
reflected heavily in the social media of the time.
Many scholars have recently taken up the subject
of the Japanese Empire. Few, however, have gone into
as much depth as John W. Dower whose book, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II,
provides overviews, primary accounts and analysis of
the situation in postwar Japan.4 Dower’s work is
critical to this paper, especially his examination of the
all-important social, political, and economic factors
that shaped the defeated nation after the war. Furthermore, Dower stresses the important role of the
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June 2012
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP),
General Douglas MacArthur, and his staff in the
formation of a new Japan. This was to result in a
democratic Japan without the means to return to its
imperialistic ways.
The popular Japanese media after the end of the
American Occupation also offers insight into the
shifting discourse on the role of the military. This may
be seen, for example, in the original Japanese release
of the film, Gojira, in 1954.5 Since it was released soon
after the end of American-imposed censorship, the film
presents criticism of many facets of the conduct of the
war and is reflective of the postwar attitude towards
anti-militarism which would not have been in the film
had censorship continued. It cannot be doubted that
the film’s single greatest condemnation was directed at
the Americans for unleashing atomic and nuclear
weaponry, which cinematically created the well-known,
nigh-unstoppable fire-breathing green monster. The
importance of this source is in its lasting popularity,
which is indicative of its warm reception by a sympathetic audience. Godzilla became a national icon for
Japan due to the popularity of the 1954 film.
Other works that examine Japanese attitudes
towards the military include Murakami Hyôe’s Japan:
The Years of Trial 1945-1952, written by a Japanese
veteran-turned-reporter who makes great use of
Japanese sources unavailable in English; Bushido, by
Nitobe Inazo, written in 1905 and reflective of the
militaristic attitude in pre-war Japan; and The Atomic
3
Major General S. Woodburn Kirby, CB, CMG, CIE, OBE,
MC, Singapore: The Chain of Disaster (London: Cassell, 1971),
138-39.
4
John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of
World War II (New York: WW Norton, 1999), 1.
5
Ishiro Honda, Gojira: The Original Japanese Masterpiece,
Including the U.S. theatrical release Godzilla, King of the
Monsters, 2 Disc DVD & Booklet (Tokyo: Toho, 1954, 1956).
Japan Disarmed
167
Bomb Suppressed: American Censorship in Occupied
Japan, by Monica Braw, which addresses the inconsistencies of American policies in Japan regarding censorship and the atomic bombings.6
Defeat in 1945 prompted a rejection of the militaristic symbols and traditions that had led Japan to
humiliation, and this strongly-felt sentiment is made
clear in the postwar period media. The collective
Japanese psyche shifted dramatically, and few scholars have examined the central issue of Japanese
demilitarization. This paper attempts to illuminate the
societal perspective of the vanquished Japanese soldier
after the war and show how that experience was
subsequently manifested in public opinion via social
media.
Japan, like Germany, has come a long way since
1945 but, unlike Germany, it has not been as active in
global politics. As Dower says in the introduction to
Embracing Defeat, “What matters is what the Japanese
themselves made of their experience of defeat, then
and thereafter; and for a half century now, most have
consistently made it the touchstone for affirming a
commitment to ‘peace and democracy.’”7 But in the
early days of the Occupation, everything was uncertain.
Millions of Japanese servicemen deployed
overseas, from Manchuria and China to Burma and
6
Murakami Hyôe, Japan: The Years of Trial 1945-1952
(Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1982); Nitobe Inazo, Bushido:
The Classic Portrait of Samurai Martial Culture (Tokyo: Tuttle
Publishing, 1969); Monica Braw, The Atomic Bomb Suppressed:
American Censorship in Occupied Japan (New York: M.E.
Sharpe, 1991);
7
Dower, 30.
168
June 2012
the Dutch East Indies, had been left stranded.8 So too
were millions of Japanese civilians who had emigrated
as colonists.9 Despite hopes of a quick repatriation,
many were to die outside Japan after the war’s end
while others would take years to return. Allied forces,
including the Americans, British and Dutch, employed
Japanese men taken prisoner after the surrender as
unpaid physical laborers up until 1947, often to
rebuild and reassert the Westerners’ colonial rule in
Asia.
American Influence on Japanese Opinion
The topic of Japanese attitudes as reflected by
popular social media is an extremely complex one
given that it is a matter of perspective and how these
varied perspectives influenced the course of events. In
addition to the Japanese people’s malaise (kyôdatsu)
in the early years of the Occupation, the presence of
American forces themselves conditioned Japanese
attitudes towards the military.10 Despite MacArthur’s
attempts to present the image of a functional Japanese
government, SCAP remade Japan in the way it saw fit.
For example, when the Japanese government in 1946
made minimal changes in the wording of the new
Constitution demanded by SCAP, MacArthur ordered
SCAP’s Government Section to create a draft of the
new Constitution “to show the Japanese how it was
done.”11 Murakami describes then-Prime Minister
Shidehara Kijûrô’s reaction to the new Constitution
8
Ibid,, 48.
Ibid..
10
Dower, 88-89.
11
Ibid, 360.
9
Japan Disarmed
169
which banned any and all armed forces as “unthinkable, but, on learning that this was one of MacArthur’s
idealistic obsessions, [Shidehara] gave up any idea of
opposition.”12 Japanese newspapers printed the full,
complete draft of the Constitution for the Japanese
public to examine on March 6.13 At the time, it was
publicly known that there was no consensus in the
government and the draft itself was dotted with
“expressions and ideas that were quaintly alien.”14
However, both MacArthur and Hirohito publicly
endorsed this draft, thereby ending any possibility of
revision.
One must also be aware that the opinions expressed in the censored social media were picked and
chosen and that the general Japanese public cannot
be fully represented in such a limited scope. Newspapers, magazines, books, films, and a host of other
forms of communications had to be translated prior to
publication, and certain topics such as anything
related to the atomic bombings, were taboo with
unwritten but very real consequences if they were
discussed.15 When the newspapers released the draft
Constitution, American censors “suppressed all but
laudatory comments.”16 As a result, rumors spread by
word of mouth that SCAP had browbeaten Prime
Minister Shidehara and his cabinet into accepting the
Constitution without objections.17 So why was MacAr12
Murakami, 202.
Kazuo Kawai, Japan’s American Interlude (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1960), 52.
14
Ibid..
15
Braw, 82-3.
16
Kawai, 52.
17
Ibid, 53.
170
June 2012
thur, presented as a man so keen on establishing
democracy in Japan, engaging in undemocratic
activity?
The answer is probably that MacArthur did not
trust the Japanese not to return to militarism. To
ensure that Japan became a democracy and never
returned its old habits, those who supported militarism had to be stripped of their political foundation as
well as their ability to spread their ideas. MacArthur,
as a military man, was more likely to respond with a
typically military order than he was to actually let the
Japanese government make a decision. By imposing
a Constitution endorsed by the Emperor, MacArthur
ensured that there was no legitimate reason to militarize. Article 9 reads, “…the Japanese people forever
renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and
the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes … Land, sea, and air forces, as well as
other war potential, will never be maintained. The right
of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”18
Censorship ensured that any attempt to coordinate
a large-scale rebellion against the government would
be discovered. Susan Braw also asserts that censorship was used to steer the Japanese public away from
criticizing the government and the Americans as well
as to promote democratization.19 The use of censorship during the Occupation meant that the Americans’
filtered social media to fit American political agendas.
This means that the social media of the time deliber-
13
18
“Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution, The No-War Clause,”
Japan-101.com, http://www.japan101.com/government/article_9_of_japan.htm, (accessed 1 Mar.
2012).
19
Braw, 28-29.
Japan Disarmed
171
ately expressed anti-militaristic themes so as to
conform to SCAP’s Press Code. As a result, it is not an
entirely accurate means of assessing the Japanese
public’s attitude.
Similarly, the International Military Tribune for the
Far East, also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Trials,
played a role in placing blame entirely upon the
Japanese. The entire nation was culpable, guilty of
association with and support for the militaristic
regime. Of the twenty-eight Class A defendants, seven
were sentenced to death by hanging, thirteen were
imprisoned for life, five were imprisoned for varying
lengths of time, two died during the trial and one was
deemed unfit to stand trial because of mental derangement.20
Censorship thus limited the use of government
publications and statements to gain an accurate
assessment of the Japanese public’s shifting opinions.
To gain a better understanding of the Japanese mindset of the pre-war era, one must examine the literature
of the period. One such work, Nitobe Inazo’s 1905
book, Bushido, offers an interpretation of the samurai
code: “Chivalry is no less indigenous to the soil of
Japan than its emblem, the cherry blossom,” he says;
“It is a living object of power and beauty among us.”21
Despite the abolition of the samurai class in 1873,
Nitobe holds that samurai values were not only pertinent but present in 1905 Japan. This is not the
aggressive, nationalistic militarism that arose in Japan
during the 1930s but, Nitobe’s work nevertheless
shows that there was a pre-existing martial pride that
172
21
Murakami, 212.
Nitobe, 1.
June 2012
served as a foundation for the militarism of the 1930s.
“As among flowers, the cherry is queen, so among men
the samurai is lord,” Nitobe asserts.22 The samurai
can act as a metaphor for the Imperial Japanese
military, who were the new warrior-heroes of Japanese
modernity in the pre-war era. Nitobe notes in the
chapter regarding the training of samurai, “A samurai
was essentially a man of action. Science was without
the pale of his activity. He took advantage of it in so
far as it concerned his profession of arms.”23 This
disdain of non-military sciences had not disappeared
when the samurai were abolished in the 19th century.
In fact, it was arguably accelerated by the need to
develop modern weapons to protect Japan from
colonial annexation by a western power. A strong and
modern military was the only preventive measure that
the Japanese believed could preserve their country
from the western imperial powers. One must note,
however, that Nitobe’s publication in 1905 is a foreshadowing of, but not the same as, the militarism that
would grow in Japan during the 1930s, which took
thoughts like Nitobe’s to an even greater extreme.
The Attitudes of Repatriated Soldiers and Sailors
One such extreme that was promoted during the
war by Japan’s military government was the ostracism
of the defeated. As a result, Japanese soldiers and
sailors taken prisoner overseas were fearful of their
postwar homecoming despite their desire for it. Many
were plagued by fears of social ostracism by the people
22
20
23
Ibid,, 111.
Ibid., 65.
Japan Disarmed
173
they had failed to protect.24 In fact, as Murakami
points out, “the majority of Japanese condemned the
former Japanese army and navy out of hand…no one
was interested in …whether they had distinguished
themselves…or whether they had been prisoners.”25
However, when one considers the soldiers’ fears
alongside the deep stigma associated with surrender
and being taken prisoner, the reason becomes clearer.
Japanese society had been conditioned to hold men
who surrendered in contempt to the point where it was
considered more honorable to die in battle than to be
taken prisoner and escape captivity.26
So to what kind of welcome did Japanese soldiers
and sailors return? Cities and homes devastated by
American bombers forced many Japanese to live in
shantytowns.27 Many veterans who were demobilized,
dressed in rags without resemblance to the smart
uniforms of wartime propaganda, were shunned by
their communities as defeated men stripped of their
honor. Returning servicemen from China and other
overseas posts were often hit doubly hard. By 1946,
many Japanese had heard of stories of the atrocities
committed by Imperial Japanese soldiers. As a result,
they were often considered to be social pariahs and
participants in horrible war crimes. In letters to the
press, veterans spoke about how they received scorn
from both acquaintances and strangers alike. Some
voiced their sincere regret for these crimes whilst
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June 2012
others protested their innocence and indignation at
being treated as war criminals.28
A sizeable number of repatriated soldiers found
that they had been declared dead, with “their funerals
conducted and grave markers erected.”29 The return
of someone believed dead caused a varied range of
emotions, from joy to heartbreak. Stories circulated
about returning soldiers finding out that their wife had
remarried, often to a brother or close friend.30 The
reality of these stories is unknown but their presence
is an example of the widespread confusion and tragedies brought on by the end of the war. Many letters to
newspapers contained pleas for the public to distinguish between the men who had been simple soldiers
in the service of their country with the “military cliques” who had been responsible for the conduct of the
war. This suggests that the Japanese public, as a
whole, was not making this distinction. The military
had led them to war and so, in defeat, the military was,
rightly or wrongly, at fault for all of it, though as we
shall see, soldiers, individually, may not have been
blamed.
During the process of demobilization, Japanese and
American soldiers cooperated to ensure that the
process went smoothly. In the reports made by
General MacArthur and those made by the Japanese
government’s ministry tasked with demobilization
stated, “No disorders; no opposition; cooperation
24
28
25
29
Murakami, 226.
Ibid., 226-27.
26
Walter Skya, Japan’s Holy War: The Ideology of Radical
Shinto Ultranationalism (London: Duke University Press, 2009),
263-64
27
Dower, 48.
30
Ibid., 60.
Ibid..
Ibid..
Japan Disarmed
175
continues.”31 The lack of disruptions and the ready
compliance of the Japanese forces to demobilize
immediately show that even the soldiers were tired of
fighting. In his reports, MacArthur pointed out the
hugely disproportionate ratio of American to Japanese
troops. Two and a half American divisions were in
charge of “fifty-nine Japanese divisions, thirty-six
brigades, and forty-five-odd regiments plus naval and
air forces,” totaling roughly 3.5 million Japanese
soldiers.32 Had the Japanese men chosen to, they
could easily have ousted a relaxed, though cautious
invader. Instead, they complied swiftly with orders to
disarm and without the least resistance or complaint.
MacArthur relates an anecdote in his report that
exemplifies the cooperative spirit between the Imperial
Japanese forces and their American Occupation
counterparts during the process of demobilization. An
American jeep encountered a Japanese tank column
on the way to a disarmament depot. To let the jeep
pass, the Japanese commander ordered his tanks to
halt. MacArthur continues,
“As the lead tank stopped to permit passing, the
jeep driver cautiously skirted it to the left on the
narrow road. The soft shoulder crumbled and
the American found himself tilted at a perilous
angle with his vehicle mired in the soft muck of
31
Douglas MacArthur, “Reports of General MacArthur,
MacArthur in Japan: The Occupation: The Military Phase,
Volume I Supplement,” Army.mil,
http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/MacArthur
Reports/MacArthur V1 Sup/ch5.htm, (accessed 20 March
2012).
32
Ibid..
176
June 2012
a rice paddy. Climbing out, the officer scratched
his head and pointed to a cable attached to the
side of one tank. Meanwhile a Japanese officer
had come running up and asked in passable
English if the tank driver had been at fault.
Assured to the contrary, he barked orders to his
men and the tank driver jockeyed his tank into
position, hooked the cable on the jeep and
pulled it back on the road. The Japanese captain bowed his apologies, accepted an American
cigarette with thanks, ordered his tank column
to continue and, waving amiably to the American, disappeared in a cloud of dust.
A month earlier these men would have shot one
another on sight. Significantly, the Japanese
armored unit was travelling without guard to be
demobilized; the Americans and the Japanese
alike were integrated in a demobilization program which was evidently successful.”33
If incidents such as this tank column roaming the
country unguarded were common, it implies that the
American occupiers had achieved a rapport with their
Japanese colleagues that eliminated the need for
armed American guards to accompany the Japanese
on the way to their depots for disarmament.
For those who did not return, efforts were made by
relatives of missing servicemen to petition Gen. MacArthur. In April 1950, he received a “remarkable appeal
from some 120,000 individuals … all of them relatives
of still-missing soldiers,” accompanied by an embroi33
Ibid..
Japan Disarmed
177
dered portrait of MacArthur.34
This is, as Dower
points out, an imitation of the wartime practice of
sending handmade sennin-bari haramaki, or
“thousand-stitch belly bands,” as an affirmation of the
close bonds between the people at home and the
soldiers abroad.35 This appeal points out that family
members had no desire to blame their loved ones in
uniform. To them, there was no shame in acknowledging that their husbands, brothers, sons were soldiers
who lost the war. They expressed only an innate
human desire to reunite the family with their missing
relatives. This suggests that the public’s contempt of
veterans was not always directed against the soldiers
themselves but rather at the militarism and humiliation that they represented.
The sad truth is that many who returned to their
native Japan returned as ashes. Many Japanese
orphans were repatriated with their families’ remains
tied around their neck in white boxes. Servicemen
returning from abroad performed the same duty for
their deceased comrades, endeavoring to find their
friends’ relatives to give them some closure.36 Terrific
efforts were made by these soldiers to see to their
responsibility to their deceased comrades before
attempting to reconnect with their own loved ones.
Many of the former servicemen were “cynical and
contemptuous of the officers who had led them in
battle.”37 In a letter to the Asahi newspaper one former
enlisted soldier wrote about how enlisted men died of
34
35
36
37
Dower, 50-52.
Ibid, 52.
Ibid, 57.
Ibid, 58.
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June 2012
starvation more often than officers and asked, “How he
could give comfort to the souls of his dead comrades.”38 Tominaga Shôzô, and over a thousand of his
comrades captured in Manchuria did not return to
Japan until 1956. They had been handed over by
Soviet troops to Communist Chinese troops, and kept
in captivity for trial. Most were acquitted on the basis
that they had shown sincere repentance during their
captivity and were then repatriated to Japan. “I didn’t
even feel that I had returned to my motherland… I got
off the ship and walked past the welcoming crowd until
I encountered my wife’s face,” Tominaga says. Even
worse, in the sixteen years since Tominaga had left for
China, his daughter had grown up entirely without
him: “the girl standing there like a stranger was my
daughter.”39
The Tokyo War Crimes Trial and the Japanese
Reaction
Another factor that had huge impact on the postwar Japanese public was the International Military
Tribunal for the Far East, also known as the Tokyo
War Crimes Trial. The types and numbers of convicts
in the Tokyo War Crimes Trials offer insight into the
public’s acceptance of war responsibility. For “crimes
against peace” twenty five “Class A” criminals were
accused and found guilty.40 Seven were hanged,
thirteen imprisoned for life and two were imprisoned
for lesser terms.41 No acquittals were made for these
38
Ibid, 59.
Haruko Taya Cook, Japan at War: An Oral History (New
York: New Press, 1992), 468.
40
Ibid, 22.
41
Ibid..
39
Japan Disarmed
179
men. Judge Radhabinod B. Pal led the dissenting
votes by reasoning that victory did not grant the right
to try the defeated and that the Allies were in no
position to pass fair judgment on the Japanese
crimes.42 He even argued that if Japan were to be tried
for the “indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, then
America too should be arraigned for dropping the
atomic bomb.”43 Pal felt that the “retroactive application of new law… was tantamount to the victors’
arbitrary exercise of power.”44 The Tokyo War Crimes
Trial was a show trial meant to publicly pin the responsibility of the war on the Japanese and to publicly
punish the wartime leadership for their actions.
Murakami Hyôe examines the data and differentiates the various convicts. Murakami’s first point deals
with Tôjô Hideki, the military prime minister from
1941-44 who was labeled as a “Class A” criminal. Tôjô
had intended to argue every accusation placed against
him and attempt to justify Japan’s actions. Marquis
Kido Kôichi, a fellow “Class A” criminal and one of the
Emperor’s closest advisors, stopped Tôjô by pointing
out that such arguments would involve the Emperor
and resurrect the issue of his culpability.45 Tôjô
changed his approach to ensure that he would assume
sole responsibility to allow the emperor to remain
blameless. In his own way, Tôjô guaranteed the
preservation of the Imperial dynasty and helped Japan
recover from the humiliation by shouldering the em42
Murakami, 213.
Ibid..
44
Yuma Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trials (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2008), 219.
45
Murakami, 210.
43
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peror’s guilt himself.46
Godzilla and His Symbolism
The media during the Occupation, as has been
previously mentioned, was strictly controlled. Therefore, to get a view of Japanese public sentiment, one
should turn to movies. An excellent example is Gojira,
directed by Honda Ishiro in 1954. Gojira is full of
subtle anti-war and anti-nuclear metaphors. The
name, “Godzilla,” is an Americanization of the Japanese name Gojira and the two are relatively interchangeable.47 The movie was produced after the end
of the American Occupation and its censorship. The
premise of the movie is that due to nuclear bomb
testing, a dinosaur living at the bottom of the ocean
was exposed to a huge amount of radiation which
mutated and angered the beast. The protagonist
lovers are Ogata, a Japanese Coast Guard sailor, and
Emiko, a nurse and daughter of Japan’s leading
paleontologist, Dr. Yamane. As Godzilla’s mysterious
attacks at sea turn into invasions of Tokyo, Ogata and
the rest of Japan’s defense forces prove incapable of
stopping the monster from destroying Tokyo and
killing its inhabitants. It is only when the enigmatic
Dr. Serizawa reluctantly reveals and uses his Oxygen
Destroyer that Godzilla is killed, much to the sadness
of Dr. Yamane. In its original release version, the
movie contained messages that would not have been
permitted by American censors. In fact, the 1955
American release cut most of the scenes referencing
the atomic bomb or Japan’s experiences in the war to
46
47
Dower, 460-61.
Honda, Gojira,(DVD).
Japan Disarmed
181
give the movie a more light-hearted ending. The
popularity of the franchise, combined with Godzilla’s
status as a symbol of Japanese monster movies, make
it an excellent example of post-censorship material,
unimpeded by strict foreign censorship.48
The anti-war theme is reflected in multiple instances. First, Ogata is a member of the Coast Guard
tasked with rescuing Godzilla’s earliest victims:
fishermen attacked at sea. Ogata’s occupation is not
necessarily a military job but it is still a martial job
with similarities to a military force. Its title and
mission, however, are purely separated from the
military so that Ogata possesses the same martial
bearing as a military man but with a more benevolent
purpose, consistent with Japan’s postwar prohibition
of war. The first attack against Godzilla is conducted
by Coast Guard frigates that launched depth charges
in the area where they thought Godzilla resided. In
disgust, Dr. Yamane comments that, “All they [the
government] think about is killing Godzilla.”49 It is a
thinly-veiled critique of violence as a solution when
other alternatives remain unexplored.
To prepare for an invasion by Godzilla after the
failed naval attack, the Coast Guard and the Army set
up an elaborate defensive plan around Tokyo Bay. The
use of the term “Army” by the English-language
subtitling may refer to the newly created Japan Self
Defense Forces or it may refer to a generic army
48
One necessary disclaimer is needed. This author is not
fluent in Japanese and viewed the 1954 film in Japanese with
English subtitles. As a result, all quotes from the movie are
subtitles taken from the movie and the author cannot verify the
accuracy of the translations.
49
Ibid..
182
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organization that is not the Imperial Japanese Army.
Regardless, the army in the movie is a well-stocked
defense force with machine guns, heavy artillery, tanks
and electric wire towers. None of these modern
weapons, however, impede Godzilla’s rampage in
Tokyo. As Godzilla is heading back to sea, the Air
Force appears in modern jets, firing rockets at the
monster. The rockets seem to do little more than
annoy Godzilla, who subsequently submerges beneath
the water. From the ruins, survivors cheer the Air
Force jets as they attack Godzilla. But the monster’s
departure raises the question of whether he would
have left even without the Air Force’s attack and
whether the cheering survivors echo the survivors of
Allied bombings who continued to support the Japanese war effort in the last days of World War II. The
clear conclusion is that the military solution failed to
kill, deter or even shorten Godzilla’s attack on Tokyo.
The movie steers the audience to see how useless the
military is when, despite its best efforts, Tokyo is in
ruins.
The protagonist couple, Emiko and Ogata, is a
metaphor as well, representing the future of Japan
that hopes for a brighter tomorrow. Oppositely, Dr.
Serizawa is introduced as a veteran of the war who is
trying to better the world but cannot because he is
unable to find a beneficial use for his invention, the
Oxygen Destroyer. Serizawa is only persuaded to use
the Oxygen Destroyer against Godzilla after watching
schoolchildren sing a song named “Oh Peace, Oh
Light, Return,” whose lyrics (according to the subtitles)
go, “May we live without destruction/May we look to
tomorrow with hope/May Peace and Light return to
Japan Disarmed
183
us.”50 Serizawa agrees to use the weapon, on the
condition that he would be allowed to destroy all of his
notes and work first to prevent anyone else from
replicating the Oxygen Destroyer. Later in the movie,
he and Ogata descend into the sea in diving suits, and
before activating the Oxygen Destroyer, Serizawa
yanks on Ogata’s line to signal to the people on the
boat to haul him up. The scientist then activates the
Oxygen Destroyer and says to Ogata that he hopes he
and Emiko are happy together before cutting his
oxygen and rope line to the boat. Both Ogata and
Emiko are devastated that the man killed himself to
give them a better future and that they had caused
him to take his own life to prevent the knowledge of his
dangerous invention from being copied.
It is made clear in the movie that the military was
unable to do anything about Godzilla, that their
weapons and attacks did nothing more than invite
further retaliation. The answer could only be found in
a terrifically powerful and terrifying weapon named the
Oxygen Destroyer. This implies a message of the end
of the military’s usefulness and the growing importance of science to shape the world. The movie is a
rejection of militaristic solutions and a message that
nuclear weapons cannot lead to anything but more
death and sorrow. Nevertheless, it adds a cautionary
message that science is also a double edged tool. It
was the pursuit of science that created the atomic
bombs and could lead to weapons far more lethal. If
one were to view Godzilla as a metaphor for the Americans during World War II, the criticism of the military
and their response becomes even more scathing
184
because it highlights their inability to defend the
country. When viewed in such a light, one cannot help
but notice a cruel irony. The whole point of modernizing Japan’s military, from the Meiji period in the 1880s
up to 1945, was to defend Japan from foreign occupation.51 Instead, the military’s actions had provoked the
very conflict the Japanese had sought to avoid and, in
turn, invited the Occupation they had wished to
prevent.
The anti-nuclear theme that is predominant in the
movie cannot be downplayed. Geiger counters are
used frequently in the movie to show radiation levels.
Many of these anti-nuclear messages are embedded in
scenes that reference World War II. The first report of
Godzilla’s attack was that there was a “sudden explosion,” reminiscent of the atomic bombs’ detonation.52
Godzilla’s first landfall on Odo Island leaves large, deep
impressions that are radioactive and dangerous to the
public. Dr. Yamane presents his findings to the
Japanese Diet: “Recent nuclear experimental detonations may have drastically altered its natural habitats.
I would even speculate that a hydrogen bomb explosion may have removed it from its surroundings.”53 To
support this, he quotes how sand found where Godzilla had trod contained Strontium-90, a radioactive
element only found in atomic bomb detonations, which
led him to believe that Godzilla must have absorbed a
massive amount of radiation and still survived.54
51
Theodore F. Cook Jr., Barbara Molony, ed., “Making
‘Soldiers,’” Gendering Modern Japanese History (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2005), 263-65.
52
53
50
Ibid..
June 2012
54
Ibid..
Ibid..
Ibid..
Japan Disarmed
185
The young Ogata felt that they should kill Godzilla
to prevent him from spreading death and suffering. He
bluntly asked, “Isn’t Godzilla a product of the atomic
bomb, which still haunts many of us Japanese?” To
which, Yamane, who had been arguing for a study of
the monster, responded angrily: “Don’t you think we
should study this creature which lives regardless of
the radiation it absorbs?”55
There is a memorable scene that speaks out against
nuclear weapons and the horrific aftermath inflicted
on humans. It starts by showing the destruction of
Tokyo where the landscape is almost entirely flat, with
only partial remains of walls, street posts and piles of
rubble to give the impression that this was once a city.
It is an image that is starkly reminiscent of the aftermath of the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
where entire city blocks were leveled by the blast. The
scene then cuts to the hospital where Emiko is helping
a doctor, who is holding a Geiger counter to a child.
The doctor shakes his head as he gets the reading and
moves on, leaving Emiko to find a way to comfort the
mother whose child is doomed to die from radiation
exposure, received from Godzilla’s presence.
In the context of the Japanese social rejection of
militarism post-World War II, Gojira makes a clear
distinction about the powerlessness of the most
modern military weapons and the growing anti-militarism in Japan. The movie’s intent is to show how
detrimental the military solution is to human society
and that all wars, whether nuclear or conventional,
invite only more death and destruction.
55
Ibid..
186
June 2012
Conclusions
It is clear that the American Occupation under
MacArthur and SCAP intended to remodel Japan into
a democracy in the hopes that it would never become
a militaristic nation again. For this, they needed
scapegoats. The most visible scapegoats were, naturally, the defeated soldiers and their leaders. The
International Military Tribunal for the Far East very
publicly sentenced most of Japan’s wartime leadership
to death or lifetime imprisonment. The American
censorship program did likewise by allowing criticism
of wartime leadership and anti-militaristic opinions to
be published while suppressing all views supporting
militarism. This makes it impossible to say with any
certainty that the social media of the Occupation
period accurately reflected the Japanese public’s
opinions. However, it can be said that there was
staunch anti-militarism and criticism of the wartime
leadership in the wake of Japan’s defeat that came
from both the civilian and ex-military sectors of the
Japanese population, though in varying forms.
Regardless of the American influence during the
Occupation, it is evident that the Japanese public
would have leaned towards pacifism. The atomic
bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki left deep emotional scars on the public psyche. This is evident in
the popular 1954 movie, Gojira, which does a very
good job of highlighting the military’s failure to stop
Godzilla, a metaphor for the Americans and the danger
of nuclear weapons. Japanese post-war pacifism
probably differed from what was envisioned by MacArthur and SCAP. Most likely – mirroring – Prime
Minister Shidehara’s sentiments, it may have involved
some form of standing armed forces, reminiscent of the
Japan Disarmed
187
modern Japan Self Defense Forces, and they would
have been limited to deployment on the Japanese
home islands. This is, however, a moot point when
one considers how former servicemen were extremely
critical of the wartime leadership and their conduct.
Most importantly, the Japanese soldier in the
aftermath of World War II presents a strange paradox.
He is a symbol of the onerous wartime militaristic
faction which led Japan to defeat and humiliation, but
at the same time, he is a victim of that war. The
soldier who had defended the home islands before
being demobilized was merely reviled. The soldier who
returned from overseas suffered long periods of physical labor at the hands of Allied captors. He received
the same rebuke from his community, but at least he
was able to reunite with some of his family. Finally,
the image of the missing soldier, whose fate is unknown, begs for sympathy for both him and his loved
ones on a humanistic level because that is, ultimately,
not a form of suffering one could wish upon another.
Each of these three categories can be found in the
analysis of postwar Japan and the views regarding
soldiers.
To one degree or another, following their defeat and
the full accounting of facts, most Japanese became
opposed to Japan’s involvement in World War II. This
was helped along, in part, by the American Occupation’s policies. However, any kind of drastic social
change cannot be accepted by the general populace
unless there is a willingness already in place to
change. To do so without this willingness would
reduce the effectiveness of any change. The fact that
the majority of the Japanese readily accepted the antimilitarist limitations of the new Constitution and that
188
June 2012
the demobilized soldier came to represent a shameful
period of Japanese history at all speaks to the antimilitaristic tendencies already present in the Japanese
public. When amplified in social media by censorship,
one would think that the sentiments were foisted upon
the Japanese but that would not be wholly true. It is
only when one examines social media after the end of
censorship that any understanding of Japanese
sentiment can be formed. With Gojira as an example,
one comes to the conclusion that the military was
rejected by the Japanese social media. One cannot
underestimate the amount of soul-searching done by
the Japanese immediately after World War II and it is
evident that they would have rejected a return of
militarism, which had led them to incur such devastating physical and emotional losses.
Ian Ghows is a graduating Senior History major at
Santa Clara University. He is from Singapore and
credits his grandfathers for his interest in History
thanks to all the stories they told him as a child.
Following graduation, he intends to work as a teacher
before applying for graduate school to get a Masters in
History.
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189
FUBAR: A Historical Perspective on the
Status of Women in the US Military
Liz Marsden
Debate rages in the military community over
whether women should receive equal status. In January of 2012, Republican presidential candidate Rick
Santorum expressed “concerns about women in
frontline combat,” explaining that their presence could
create “a very compromising situation…where people
naturally…may do things that may not be in the
interests of the mission because of other types of
emotions that are involved.”1 Even though the military
started accepting women into academies over thirty
years ago, sex discrimination remains rife, leading to
tensions between men and women, and, in slowly
rising numbers, cases of sexual assault. Almost a third
of all women currently serving in the military are
estimated to have been victims of sexual assault or
rape, a rate that is twice as high as in the civilian
population.2 These results are due in large part to the
deeply entrenched misogynistic culture of the military.
1
Alex Moe, “Gingrich says Santorum ‘Completely
Misunderstands’ Modern Warfare,” MSNBC, 14 Feb. 2012,
<http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/14/104102
43-gingrich-says-santorum-completely-misunderstandsmodern-warfare> (18 Feb. 2012).
2
Nancy Gibbs, “Sexual Assaults on Female Soldiers: Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell,” Time Magazine, 8 Mar. 2010, <
http://articles.cnn.com/2008-0731/us/military.sexabuse_1_sexual-assault-sexual-abusemilitary-service?_s=PM:US> (19 Feb. 2012).
190
June 2012
The traditions and cultures of United States Armed
Forces have remained largely unchanged for the better
part of three centuries. While the integration of African
Americans into the armed forces disrupted some
military traditions, racial integration was rigidly
enforced and not nearly as disruptive as the integration of women. Because of its hyper-masculine, malecentered culture, the integration of women has challenged the traditions and cultures of the US military in
fundamental ways.
The military claims to be in the midst of a paradigm
shift from “exclusionary combat, masculine-warrior”
culture, to a culture that mirrors society’s shift towards “egalitarianism and inclusiveness.”3 However, it
has not made the changes necessary to accept women
as truly equal members, causing women to continue to
struggle to find equality in the armed forces. By their
very nature, women challenge everything for which the
military used to stand—because of its foundation in
perceptions of manhood and masculinity.
The United States military has always been concerned with its image as a powerful, virile force.
Generations of patriotic, hardworking men have
protected military traditions passed down from the
Revolutionary War. When the country entered the mid20th century, most men were taking up desk jobs,
leaving relatively few working with their hands –the
traditional occupation of “real” men. As women entered
the work force during World War II en masse, there
were few careers men could enter without working side
3
Karen O. Dunivin, Military Culture: A Paradigm Shift?
Maxwell Air force Base, Alabama, 1997.
<http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/maxwell/mp10.pdf>
FUBAR
191
by side with women. This made the military an increasingly rare opportunity to perform a “man’s job.”
It was seen as a beacon of masculinity and strength, a
reputation the military reinforced in its propaganda
posters. The young men aged eighteen to twenty-five
who make up the bulk of the enlisted army personnel,
are, even today, indoctrinated into this traditional
masculine culture.4
Scholar Linda Francke notes, “The military culture
is driven by a group dynamic centered around male
perceptions and sensibilities, male psychology and
power, male anxieties and the affirmation of masculinity.”5 Once recruits enter basic training, they are told
that their old life is over. They are maggots, the lowest
of the low in a very hierarchical structure. A group
identity is created. The individual is gone; the only
thing that matters are one’s fellow soldiers. This
contributes to the harassment and discrimination
women face in the military. Group mentality encourages behavior that an individual would not normally
exhibit, and is encouraged by the over-idealization of
the small percentage of men who see action. These
men are considered the pinnacle of masculinity within
the army, decorated with purple hearts, and ribbons.
Equating masculinity with violence ignores that “only
15 percent ever fired their weapons in combat” in
World War II, and “fewer than 15 percent of the hundreds of thousands of military personnel who served in
192
“Demographics Army G-1,” Deputy Chief of Staff, Army. 23
Mar. 2010, <http://www.armyg1.army.mil/HR/demographics.asp> (16 Jan.
2012).
5
Linda Bird Francke, Ground Zero: The Gender Wars in the
Military, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 152.
June 2012
Vietnam are estimated to have been in a firefight.”6
Despite this reality, new recruits are trained to strive
for “STRAC” status—that is, “Straight, Tough and
Ready for Action.”7
From basic training on, very close bonds are
formed between soldiers. Reducing women to sex
objects has been “considered essential to forming close
fraternal bonds.”8 This brand of group mentality takes
a negative turn when women come into the military.
The results can be something as relatively minor as
“aggressive pranks like ‘mooning’ passing cars” to
violent gang rapes. “Such male-to-male displays [serve]
to wean out the wimps in the male group and establish
a leadership hierarchy based on daring.”9 One man
might not do such things on his own, but as a member
of a group fighting for a hierarchical position, the
stakes and behaviors change.
In the past young recruits were degraded by their
Staff Sergeants by the use of sexist epithets. These
served to associate shame with femininity, reminding
these young men to strive for masculinity. For example, the very common (until recently) chant of “this is
my Rifle, this is my Gun, this is for fighting, this is for
fun” was used to remind recruits that they should
never refer to their rifle as a gun.10 In a hazing technique, the man who mistakenly referred to his rifle as
6
Ibid., 153.
Ibid.
8
Ibid., 159.
9
Ibid.
10
Richard A. Burns, “‘This is my Rifle, This is my Gun…’:
Gunlore in the Military,” New Directions in Folklore, Issue 7
2003, <http://www.temple.edu/english/isllc/newfolk/military/rifle.html> (19
Jan. 2012).
7
4
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193
a gun would strip down to his underwear (or entirely)
and recite this chant, clutching his crotch when
referring to his gun that he was to use “for fun,” and
clutching his rifle for the other lines.11 This and other
very male-centric chants and degrading comments
about acting like “sissies” or “ladies” were forbidden for
fear of lawsuits when women entered the military
academies and the basic training camps.12 Gone is
yelling in soldiers’ faces or calling them names to
motivate them.13 This new approach to training proves
that the military is trying to change its image, but real
change in the military with regard to female troops is
slow in coming.
Women pose threats to the military culture beyond
the taunts of drill sergeants however. The rhetoric in
the military was to protect the weak: sisters, mothers,
children—if women in the military can protect themselves, who are male soldiers protecting? World War II
propaganda posters encouraged young men to “protect
the nation’s honor,” represented by a young woman.14
The role of women in American society has undergone
drastic changes. No longer is a woman bound to being
a wife and mother exclusively. Women can choose a
career or a family, or both. Women have attended
prestigious universities and entered the workforce en
11
Ibid.
Ibid.
13
Rachael Tolliver, “Drill Sergeants Debunk Myths,” US
Army, 8 April 2009 <http://www.army.mil/article/19408/> (20
Feb. 2012).
14
“It’s Up to You, Protect the Nation’s Honor,” Associated
Motion Picture Advertisers,
<http://www.zazzle.com/vintage_protect_the_nations_honor_po
ster-228695061682110582> (9 Feb. 2012).
12
194
June 2012
masse. This newfound freedom threatened male
dominance in family, the workplace, and the military.
No longer did the term “breadwinner” apply exclusively
to males. In 1979, women coming into the military
were perceived as a threat by their male counterparts.
Of eighty-seven men and seventy-six women beginning
basic training at Fort McClellan in 1979, “twenty-two
of the women had some college experience, as opposed
to seven of the men. Only seven of the women had a
GED…instead of a high school diploma, whereas thirty
six of the men had neither.”15 These statistics of
women in the military having better educational
backgrounds than their male counterparts remain
typical today, exacerbating gender gap tensions—creating yet another challenge to the military’s
notion of male dominance and superiority.
On the one hand, men joined the military believing
it to be a boys’ club, resenting the women who were
“imposing.” On the other hand, dedicated female
patriots who sought entry to the military as equal
comrades, and were told they cannot fight for their
country. Both sides of this gender rift are frustrated
with the situation and no course of action has eased
the tensions. The women feel unappreciated, and the
men see the women as intruders.
In a male-dominated world, women’s gender roles
are tricky to navigate. What has been holding women
back is the male perception that they are weak and
cannot do a man’s job. Women have to prove themselves as masculine in order to gain the respect of their
male counterparts. If they succeed, they risk being
15
Helen Rogan, Mixed Company: Women in the Modern
Army (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1981), 33.
FUBAR
195
perceived as too masculine, and are accused of being
a lesbian or a bitch. Overly masculine women present
a threat to their male counterparts, but there is also
danger in not being masculine enough. If a female in
the armed forces tries to retain her femininity she will
face several challenges. If she is too “girly” she reinforces every stereotype of weakness that kept women
out of the military historically, and continues to keep
women out of combat. There is also the threat that if
a woman appears excessively feminine, she will be
perceived as “asking for it” when she is the victim of
sexual assault.16 As a Naval officer said to female
troops on the second day of boot camp, “Welcome to
the fleet. In the Navy’s eyes you’re either dykes or
whores—get used to it.”17 Trying to find middle ground
between the two serves as an added stress for women
in the military. Forty-nine percent of women in the
military acknowledge pressures to act either masculine
(33%) or feminine (26%).18 This pressure to act a
certain way “can lead to decreased performance and
efficiency on the part of those employees.”19 Women in
the military worrying about gender roles and fitting in
with their peers are likely to feel excluded and selfconscious in a group exercise or on a team.
While women’s formal acceptance into the military
was long overdue, it was a result of social and political
forces demanding military change. Years earlier, racial
integration was not achieved as a response to social
16
Melissa S. Herbert, Camouflage Isn’t Only for Combat:
Gender, Sexuality and Women in the Military (New York: New
York University Press, 1998), 81.
17
Ibid., 55.
18
Ibid., 41.
19
Ibid.
196
June 2012
change; the military was racially integrated by an
executive order from President Harry Truman that was
prompted by political pressure.20 Racial inequality in
the United States was a detriment during the Cold
War. It was an Achilles heel for the United States
because communism promised equal standing for all,
regardless of race. Truman made the decision to
integrate the military despite, rather than because of,
widespread severe social opposition.21 The need to
create a united front during the Cold War meant that
from the top down, racial slurs and discrimination
were not to be tolerated. Women, on the other hand,
were making social strides in the 1960s and 1970s,
achieving the right to birth control and abortion, even
as the Equal Rights Amendment failed.22 Despite the
Women’s Armed Services Integration Act in 1948 and
the 1972 mandate that “all military occupational
specialties [be] opened to WAC officers and enlisted
women except those that might require combat training or duty,” women were only grudgingly accepted
into the armed forces and to this day struggle for
equality.23 Instead of being integrated in one fell,
rigorously enforced, swoop as happened with race,
women have been only sluggishly integrated into the
20
“President Truman’s Integration of the Armed Forces,”
Congressional Digest, 89 no. 4 (Apr. 2010) 110-112.
21
Morris J. Macgregor, Jr. Integration of the Armed Forces
1940-1965 (Washington D.C.: United States Army Center of
Military History, 1985) x.
22
“Constitutional Amendments Not Ratified,” US House of
Representatives, March, 2012
<http://www.house.gov/house/Amendnotrat.shtml> (1 Mar.
2012).
23
US Army, “A New Era,” Women in the US Army, December
2011, < http://www.army.mil/women/newera.html> (20 Jan. 2012).
FUBAR
197
military in a stepping stone approach, from basic
training, to being trained in weaponry, to one day,
being in combat.
To give historical perspective, when the military
was racially integrated resistance was not tolerated. As
Morris J. Macgregor, Jr. writes, “from the beginning
the military establishment rightly understood that the
breakup of the all-black unit would…necessarily mean
more than mere desegregation.” The military “used the
terms integration and equal treatment and opportunity
to describe its racial goals” instead of desegregation.
Integration requires providing equal opportunity, not
just ending segregation.24 Women, however, are still
struggling to end segregation. Until full desegregation
has been carried out in the military, there can be no
hope of integration. The only way for women to achieve
that integration is if, in the words of Karen Dunivin,
“senior US military leaders…can institutionalize a
cultural paradigm embodied by an inclusive whole
rather than a paradigm personified by an exclusive
few.”25
The double standard is revealed by comparing the
case of Isaac Woodard, representing the military’s
commitment to racial integration, to the Tailhook
incident, representing the military’s lack of commitment to gender integration. When World War II veteran
Isaac Woodard was honorably discharged from the
military, he boarded a bus from Camp Gordon in
Georgia to his home in South Carolina. Upon arrival in
24
Macgregor, Jr. Integration of the Armed Forces United
States Army Center of Military History, 1985, x.
25
Dunivin, Military Culture, Maxwell Air Force Base,
Alabama, 1997.
198
June 2012
South Carolina, “Sergeant Isaac Woodard [was] taken
off the bus by the town sheriff, a 210-pound white man
named Linwood Shull. He [was] arrested for disorderly
conduct… in none of the papers is there any suggestion there was verbal or physical violence on the part
of Sergeant Woodard.”26 After his arrest he was beaten
to the point of being blinded.27 When President Truman heard about this incident and learned that the
officer had not been punished, he was furious. Truman
told the Attorney General, “we can’t just address these
ad hoc cases of violence”—something more needed to
be done.28 When the police officer who brutalized
Woodard was found not guilty by an all-white jury,
Truman created another executive order: the Civil
Rights Commission. He gave this commission the
power of federal subpoena, charging it with the important task of documenting “the degree of racism in
America and how we can attack it.”29 Truman also
addressed the NAACP on the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial: “It is my deep conviction,” he said, “that we
have reached a turning point in our country’s efforts to
guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens.
Recent events in the United States and abroad have
made us realize that it is more important today than
ever before to insure that all Americans enjoy these
rights. When I say all Americans--I mean all Ameri26
Michael R. Gardner, “Harry Truman and the Civil Rights:
Moral Courage and Political Risks,” UVA NewsMakers, 26 Sept.
2003, <http://www.virginia.edu/uvanewsmakers/newsmakers/gardner.html>
(10 Mar. 2012).
27
Ibid.
28
Ibid.
29
Ibid.
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199
cans.”30 Truman’s integration of the military and
continued intolerance for racial violence and injustice
left no question of what would happen to those who
violated his policies.
Fast forward forty-five years to the Tailhook scandal. A total of eighty-three women and seven men were
sexually assaulted during a three day naval symposium.31 After the Inspector General and the Naval
Investigative Service issued a report in April of 1992
describing the assaults, a second investigation was
launched and published in September of 1992 by the
Pentagon’s Inspector General. It concluded that “senior
Navy officials deliberately undermined their own
investigation to avoid bad publicity, and ignored the
participation of senior officers at Tailhook.”32 In April
1993, the Pentagon Inspector General’s report was
released in full, revealing that “at least 140 officers
were being referred to the military services for possible
disciplinary action.”33 Yet significantly, not one of
these 140 cases ever went to trial.34
One man’s blinding by a racist police officer resulted in indictments, follow-ups, the Civil Rights
Commission and a public conference with the NAACP
on the steps of the Lincoln memorial stating equality
for all Americans. For over ninety victims of sexual
assault because of misogynistic naval officers, there
were in-house investigations leading to no trials, let
200
June 2012
alone criminal charges. The stark dichotomy of these
two cases highlights the very different attitudes
towards racial equality and gender equality in the
military.
On paper, equality has been achieved for women in
the armed forces. However, there are mixed messages
from the top leadership when it comes to enforcement.
On the one hand, women are allowed to be in the
military and certain policies are strictly enforced, yet
superior officers ignore hundreds of rape cases. In
1995, when a US Army recruiter was raped, the Naval
Criminal Investigative Services (NCIS) refused to press
charges against her Marine rapist, even going so far as
to say she should be “grateful that a Marine raped
[her].”35 Such a message makes the integration of
women impossible. Soldiers follow orders, above all
else. If they are ordered not to discriminate and sexual
assault is not tolerated, in action as well as on paper,
the number of incidents will rapidly decline. Publicly
denouncing yet privately tolerating the rapist while
blaming the survivor for disrupting the group dynamic
reveals the persistent misogynistic attitudes of the
military.
The reasons for keeping women out of combat
today are very similar to the arguments that kept them
out of the military in general, as well as those that
were used to retain “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The charge
is that both women and homosexuals disrupt individ-
30
Ibid.
“Tailhook ’91,” Frontline PBS, Feb 2012,
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/navy/tailho
ok/91.html> (3 Mar. 2012).
32
Ibid.
33
Ibid.
34
Ibid.
31
35
Anonymous, “United States Army Recruiter Raped,” My
Duty to Speak, 15 Dec. 2011,
<http://mydutytospeak.com/2011/12/15/united-states-armyrecruiter-raped/> (20 Jan. 2012).
FUBAR
201
ual troops and unit cohesion.36 These arguments
reflect the fact that both gays and women threaten the
military’s traditional masculine ideals. A part of the
tenacity of very conservative masculine views is that
“the men and women serving in the armed forces today
represent less than 1 percent of the country’s total
population, and come heavily from rural, conservative
areas in the South and the mountain West.”37 In
addition, white males comprise roughly 70% of the
officer population, and 63% of the total active-duty
soldiers. An overwhelming 70% of the people in the
military are of the Christian faith, which is also
patriarchy-based.38
The racial demographics in active-duty personnel
however, are comparable to the population demographics of the country they protect. However, while
50.8% of the US population is female, only 15% of the
members of the armed services are women.39 The
argument that women and racial minorities disrupt
group cohesion is belied by a study revealing that
surface level diversity, such as race or gender, has “not
been found useful in the study of predictors of work
group outcomes.”40 What are more predictive of how a
36
Anne Flaherty and Julie Watson, “Opponents say Military
needs Culture Change, too,” The Associated Press, 20 Oct. 2010,
< http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/10/ap-military-gayban-culture-change-102010/> (10 Feb. 2012).
37
Ibid.
38
“Demographics Army G-1,” Deputy Chief of Staff, Army. 23
Mar. 2010, <http://www.armyg1.army.mil/HR/demographics.asp> (16 Jan.
2012).
39
Ibid.
40
Mickey R. Dansby, James B. Stewart, and Schuyler C.
Webb, Managing Diversity in the Military (London: Transaction
Publishers, 2001), 67.
202
June 2012
group will function are “deep level” diversity variables
such as values, attitudes, and personality. These
diversity variables were associated with “group cohesiveness, performance, group processes, and turnover.”41 So while diversity is proven to have a negative
effect on group or unit cohesion, it is the deep level
diversity, not the surface diversity, which is the
problem. “The closeness of a highly cohesive group
reduces internal tensions and provides a supportive
environment for the attainment of the group’s goals.”42
The military is creating a rift in group cohesion by
denying women in the armed forces that supportive
environment, alienating them and causing tension
within groups.
Culture by its very definition is constantly changing, influenced by a variety of factors. However, military culture in the US has remained, for the most part,
stubbornly constant over hundreds of years. The
military’s lack of genuine commitment to the integration of women has led to a variety of present day
problems. These patriarchal traditions and policies are
falling by the wayside, too slowly for liberal women and
too fast for conservative men, creating gaps both in
military teams and in gender equality. The military
needs to commit to shifting its culture in a profound
way in order to prevent the backlash that continues
thirty years after women first graduated from West
Point.43 This refusal within the military to acknowledge
that change needs to happen has allowed problems to
41
Ibid.
Ibid., 71.
43
US Army, “A New Era,” Women in the US Army, December
2011, < http://www.army.mil/women/newera.html> (20 Jan.
2012).
42
FUBAR
203
escalate. By mandating and enforcing full gender
equality, a new generation of military personnel can
quickly create a new culture of true equality. In a
military whose sole purpose is to protect and defend
the people of the United States, there can be no
tolerance for misogyny and sexist traditions.
Liz Marsden is a junior history major and a new
member of Phi Alpha Theta. She is interested in pursuing studies in United States social history and hopes to
go on to get her Ph.D. so she can teach at a college
level.

Historical Perspectives 2012 PDF

Transcription

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